202 A. W. Greely—Annual Address. 
In its comparative branches it trains and stimulates the intel- 
lectual faculties; by its contact with nature it develops the powers 
of observation and reflection, and in its investigations it offers 
endless opportunities for promoting clearness of expression and 
logical methods of conclusion. For professional men its stores 
of knowledge regarding other nations and countries broaden the 
mind. To merchants the knowledge it affords is indispensable 
when changed conditions oblige them to seek foreign outlets for 
their wares. Its utility is even more apparent to statesmen and 
legislators, whose actions control the destiny of a nation, which, 
through their geographic ignorance or knowledge may be led 
into humiliating and unfavorable concessions or may reap mate- 
rial advantages at favorable opportunities. To the tiller of the 
earth it offers material advantages in its afforded knowledge re- 
garding the influences of elevation, exposure and soil, as shown 
in the natural vegetation or cultivated crops of various countries. 
To the investigating,scientist it presents a wealth of unsurpassed 
material, almost untouched, it may be said, relative to the distri- 
bution of permanent and transitory fauna and flora, and in regard 
to its ethnographic data and sociologic conditions, so often af- 
fected by man’s dependence on the resources of the soil. 
It has been objected that the addition of another science to 
the already overladen course of our great universities is to be 
deplored, since even now time fails for a complete course. This 
was a valid objection a quarter of a century since, before the au-’ 
thorities of the great educational institutions of the world came 
to realize that the field of human knowledge had so broadened 
that the scientist of the future must be a specialist. Now the 
initiation of selective courses gives opportunity for additional 
departments of science, hitherto neglected or ignored. As man 
is the dominating spirit of the earth, so the study of man is the 
highest and noblest of all pursuits. Time was when the dead 
languages and ancient history—the forgotten speech and vain 
actions of vanished nations—were the heights of secular scho- 
lastic ambition, but with advanced civilization there inevitably 
developed a necessity of formulating and mastering such of the 
natural sciences as minister to the growing physical needs“of 
mankind. The struggle between the humanities and the natural 
sciences is practically past, each maintaining its fruitful field of, 
usefulness. We have come now, however, to another age, to a 
higher stage of civilization, where the brotherhood of man is 
