4 GERMANY IN SCIENCE 



that I would speak to you today, that is the place which is 

 held by Germany in science. I am moved to this because for 

 many years I have inwardly revolted against the abject ac- 

 quiescence on the part of multitudes of Americans in the be- 

 lief, which has been sedulously cultivated, that so-called ' 'Ger- 

 man science' ' may justly claim leadership, and that young men 

 in order to finish, and thoroughly round out an education should 

 be sent to German Universities. While I shall not attempt 

 in what I say to withhold honor where honor is due, and while 

 I am, I trust, entirely too magnanimous to minimize or detract 

 from the intellectual efforts of those who have searched with 

 success for truth in any land or clime, and love to think of the 

 community of scientific men as constituting a republic, like that 

 of letters, which gathers into its fold the seekers for truth in 

 all nations, I cannot fail before this audience to express my 

 deep-rooted conviction that for at least fifty years a gullible 

 world has been stuffed with more or less mistaken ideas as to 

 German achievements in the field of science. 



Since in the limits of a brief address like this I cannot go 

 deeply into the subject, I am going to rapidly point out a few 

 facts for the purpose of showing you how much has been ac- 

 complished by men who lived and wrought outside of Teuton- 

 ia and how comparatively small, in reality, have been German 

 achievements in many important fields. 



Let us take up the science of Mathematics, which deals with 

 quantity, whether expressed in number or form. The science 

 of pure numbers, or algebra, as its name implies, had at first 

 its most striking development among the Arabs, who taught 

 it in the schools of Bagdad and other centers. It was brought 

 to Spain by the Moors, and by them was transmitted to the 

 races of western Europe, to be refined and amplified in later 

 times. Now who were those who effected this later develop- 

 ment? One of the greatest names in this connection is that of 

 Sir Isaac Newton. He in vented the calculus. He was followed by 

 Leibnitz, a German. A long and bitter controversy arose in this 

 connection, some claiming that the work of Leibnitz was done 



