Jan. 2 1, 1886] 



NA TURE 



281 



An official memorandum communicated to the German 

 Reichstag lately gives some details about the Marshall Archi- 

 pelago, of which Germany has just assumed the protectorate. 

 It includes thirty lagoon islands or atolls, none of which rise 

 more than ten feet above the sea. The vegetation is limited to 

 the coca palm, the bandanas, and the bread-fruit tree. The 

 native fauna are a small lizard, laud- and water-crabs, and a few 

 wild pigeons. There are absolutely no springs or running 

 water, the inhabitants being dependent on rain-water caught in 

 hollows and clefts in the rock, which rapidly becomes brackish 

 on account of the porous medium. The group naturally divides 

 itself into two chains, the eastern or Ratack, and the western or 

 Ralick. It is in this latter that the largest island of the whole 

 group, Jaluit, is situated. It has an area of about thirty-five 

 square miles, contains about 1000 inhabitants, and possesses a 

 good harbour. On it are the factories of the European and 

 American Companies trading to the group. American mission- 

 aries have also stations there, the work of which is carried on by 

 Sandwich Islanders. 



A Russian scientific expedition to proceed to China is being 

 organised under the direction of Dr. Piassetsky. The expenses 

 will be provided partly by the Imperial Exchequer, and partly 

 by the Moscow Commercial Committee. 



The French Minister of Public Instruction has informed the 

 Geographical Society of Paris that he has added to the Committee 

 on historical and scientific work a section on historical and 

 descriptive geography. 



In the last number of the Mittheilungen of the Vienna Geo- 

 graphical Society (Bd. xxviii. No. 12) Herr Becker describes 

 the " Blue Grotto of Busi," one of the Dalmatian Islands, which 

 has only recently been discoveied, and which owes its name to 

 a peculiar light effect. It greatly resembles the celebrated 

 " Grotta azzura" at Capri, but seems to be inferior to the latter 

 in several respects. Herr Wienkowski has a curious paper on 

 the " Pomeranian Kassubs," a remnant of the Wendic peoples 

 which once inhabited the districts between the Saale and Elbe 

 oil one side and the Vistula on the other. The sub-title of the 

 paper is, "A Contribution to the Ethnography of Germany." 

 The Kassubs, although, according to a popular song of tlieir 

 own, as numerous as the sand on the sea-shore, now are very 

 few in number, and their special characteristics are disappearing 

 with the spread of a common school education. The writer 

 gives an historical sketch of the Kassubs, describes their occu- 

 pations, dwellings, clothing, food, marriage and harvest customs, 

 the speech, aud concludes with a few words on their proverbs 

 and tales. Prof Palacky gives a brief account of attempts at 

 acclimatisation of plants in the Congo region, and a letter from 

 Dr. Lenz from the Congo is also published. 



THE BENEFITS WHICH SOCIETY DERIVES 



FROM UNIVERSITIES'^ 

 ' r O be concerned in the establishment and development of a 

 ■'■ university is one of the noblest and most important tasks 

 ever imposed on a community or on a s-t of men. It is an 

 undertaking which calls for the exercise of the utmost care, for 

 combination, co-operation, liberality, inquiry, patience, reticence, 

 exertion, and never-ceasing watchfulness. It involves perplexi- 

 ties, delays, risks. Mistakes cannot possibly be avoided ; heavy 

 responsibility is never absent. But history and experience light 

 up the problem ; hope and faith give animation to the builders 

 when they are weary and depressed. Deeply moved by these 

 considerations, I desire to bring before you, my colleagues in 

 this work, without whose labours all would be a failure, you who 

 are Trustees, and you who are teachers, before the c tizens of 

 Baltimore, and before this company of students pressing forward 

 to take the places of authority in the w-ork of education and 

 administration — before you all, my friends, I wish to bring some 

 aspects of university lile, which, if not new, may perhaps be 

 stated in terms which are fresh, with illustrations drawn from 

 our own experience. 



I ask you to reflect at this time on the Relation of Universi- 

 ties to the Progress of Civilisation, and I begin by assuming 

 that we are agreed substantially on the meaning of both these 

 terms. The word university, as applied to a learned corpora- 

 tion, is several hundred years old, and in all times and lands has 

 emliodied the idea of the highest known agency for the promo- 

 ' An Address by D. C. Gilman, President of tKe Johns Hapklns University. 



tion of knowledge and the education of youth. Civilisation is a 

 new word, hardly introduced a century a:JO, though the idea 

 which it embodies is as old as organic society. Guizot, to whose 

 eloquence we owe the popularity of this term, avoids its formal 

 definitiiDn, declaring in general terms that civilisation is the grand 

 emporium of a people, in which all its wealth, all the elements 

 of its life, all the powers of its existence, are stored up. " Wher- 

 ever," as he goes on to say, "the exterior condition of man 

 becomes enlarged, quickened, or improved, wherever the intel- 

 lectual nature of man distinguishes itself by its energy, brilliancy, 

 and its grandeur ; wherever these two signs concur, and they often 

 do so, notwithstanding the gravest imperfections in the social 

 system, there man proclaims and applauds civilisation." Assum- 

 ing, then, that by university the highest fchool is understood, 

 and by civilisation the highest welfare of mankind, let us inquire 

 into the influence which the advancement of knowledge by means 

 of superior educational establishments has exerted or may exert 

 upon the progress of society. 



A little reflection will remind us of five great agencies by which 

 modern Christian civilisation is helped forward : first, THE 

 Family, unit of our social organisation, recognised by Aristotle 

 as the basis of society, and styled by modern philosophers "the 

 focus of patriotism '' (Lieber), and the very "starting-point of 

 social morality " (Maurice) ; next. Trade or Commerce, the 

 exchange of one man's products for another's, the traffic between 

 communities and nations ; third. Law and Custom, written and 

 unwritten, the enforcement of duties and defence of rights, the 

 equitable adjustment of conflicting claims ; fourth. Religion, 

 the acknowledgment of personal responsibility to an infinite and 

 all-controlling "Power. The last to be named is Knowledge, 

 the recorded o! servations and experience of our race in ancient 

 and in modern times, or, in other words, Sciektia, science in 

 its broadest significance. 



These five influences working in dwelling houses, market places, 

 state houses, churches, libraries, and schools, control our modern 

 life; and that !tate of society is the best, in which domestic 

 virtue, mercantile honour, and the freedom of exchange, obedi- 

 ence to law, pure and undefiled religion, and the general diftusion 

 of knowledge, are the dominant characteristics. We are only 

 concerned at present with the last of these five factors. 



The means by which our race has acquired knowledge and 

 preserved its experience are manifold. The inhabited worldisa 

 great laboratory, in which human society is busy experimenting. 

 Observation, exploration, and reflection have been alliecl in 

 interpreting the physical characteristics of the globe, ever since 

 the primaeval law, " Subdue the earth," was heard by primitive 

 man ; experiments in social organisation have also been made on 

 a colossal scale, and in little microcosms ; war has taught its 

 pitiful lessons ; superstition, irreligion, vice, and crime, as well 

 as literature, art, law, religion, and philosophy, have all been 

 teachers ; customs, traditions, epics, creeds, codes, treaties, in- 

 scriptions, parchments, books, pyramids, temples, statues, 

 museums, schools, pulpits, platforms, have all been employed to 

 perpetuate and diffuse the knowledge which has been acquired ;. 

 but ever since Europe emerged from the darkness of the Middle 

 Ages, Universities have been among the most potent of all 

 agencies for the advancement and promulgation of Learning. 

 Their domain, the republic of letters, has been wider than the 

 boundaries of any state ; their citizens have not been restricted to- 

 any one vocabulary ; their acquisitions have been hid in no crypt. 

 They have gathered from all fields and distributed to all men. 

 Themes the most recondite, facts the most hidden, relations the 

 most complex, have been sought out and studied, that if possible 

 the laws which govern the world might be discovered, and man. 

 made better. 



In one of our halls there hangs a diagram which I never pass^ 

 without pausing to think of its significance, listening as I would 

 before the sphinx to di.^cover if it has any message for me. It 

 contains a list of European universities founded since the dawn 

 of inodern states — a period of more than seven centuries, a list 

 of over two hundred names. Every state in Europe, every great 

 city, has its high school. Popes, emperors, kings, and princes 

 have been their founders ; ecclesiastics, reformers, republics,, 

 municipalities, private citizens, munificent women, have contri- 

 buted to their maintenance. Wherever European civilisation has 

 gone, the idea of the university has been carried with it. t<!>> 

 North and South America, to Australia, even to India, China, 

 and Japan ; it came with the Virginians to Williamsburg, with 

 the New Englanders to Cambridge and New Haven ; it was 

 planted in California before there was an organised state on the 

 Pacific slope. 



