78 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. L. No. 1282 



ttree quarters of those wIlo have been elected 

 are alumni, or non-active members, and have 

 no connection with any chapter, or indeed with 

 the society. And another point is that the ac- 

 tivities of the society have been largely inter- 

 nal, in the same sense, roughly speaking, that 

 a fraternity exists for the benefit of those who 

 are members of it, and whatever outside influ- 

 ence it exerts is of a passive, rather than an 

 active kind. The young investigator may as- 

 pire to the honor of an election to member- 

 ship, but there is at least a gain of truth in 

 the definition that " an honor is that which 

 one does not appreciate after one gets it." 



Broadly speaking we may classify the fields 

 in which Sigma Xi may extend its influence 

 as local, national and — it may be a dream, 

 but I am going to add — international. 



The local problems confronting each chapter 

 are more or less peculiar to the chapter, and 

 in discussing these I can only speak of condi- 

 tions existing here at Cornell. How can we, 

 right here at home, lend still further encour- 

 agement to " original investigations in sci- 

 ence, pure and applied " ? 



One of the most important problems dis- 

 cussed by President Schurman in his recent 

 annual report is that of raising the standard 

 of scholarship in the university. The very 

 fact that the president has seen fit to raise 

 this question in an oiEcial report indicates 

 how serious the situation seems to him. For 

 solving this difficult problem various means 

 have been suggested, such as the establish- 

 ment of scholarships, prizes, honor courses 

 and the like. Each of these will doubtless be 

 effective, but no one of them can be considered 

 a cure-all. Any solution must be based upon 

 the fundamental object of a university course, 

 which, I take it, is not to make of a student 

 in four years a walking encycloi)edia, but 

 rather to teach him a few facts, and in four 

 years, to inspire in him such habits of study 

 and scholarship as will make him a student 

 for the rest of his life, whether his field be 

 philosophy or engineering, so that his real 

 studies will begin, not end, on commencement 

 day. For, that man is successful in the prac- 

 tise of his profession who, in his college 



com^e or elsewhere, has gained confidence in 

 his ability to undertake and accomplish suc- 

 cessfully things which are new to him and 

 which very likely have never been done before. 

 The man who lacks this confidence, one might 

 even say habit, of independent thinking, is 

 likely to become a mere clerk or mechanic 

 and to stay at the bottom of the ladder. 



Now, you may teach facts and the relation 

 of one group of facts to another — all that part 

 of knowledge which we may classify as en- 

 cyclopedic — but, try as you may, you can not 

 teach by aid of any sort of artificial stimuli, 

 life-long habits of study and of independent 

 thought. These can come only iy inspiration 

 and example, for both of which the student 

 must look, indeed it is his right to look, to the 

 faculty, if he is to get full value from the 

 four years of his time which he spends here. 

 Or, looking at the university as an economic 

 unit in society, we can not expect to turn out 

 a productive student body from a compara- 

 tively non-productive faculty, non-productive 

 not so much because of lack of interest in 

 scholarship and research as because of lack of 

 opportunity. 



One of the properties of matter is that 

 which we call inertia, by virtue of which a 

 body at rest remains at rest unless acted on 

 by some outside force, or if in motion remains 

 in motion unless brought to rest by some out- 

 side force. The application of this principle 

 extends, at least in a qualitative way, far out- 

 side the realm of material things. In our 

 ordinary, every-day life we call it habit. It 

 takes force, of one kind or another to make 

 habits and it certainly takes force to break 

 them. 



It was probably in unconscious recognition of 

 this principle that the remark was made some 

 time ago, that while it might be true that 

 students would study if interested, it was also 

 true that in order to become interested they 

 must be made to study. Because of the in- 

 ertia of the hiunan intellect, this probably ap- 

 plies, more or less, to aU of us, to the faculty 

 as well as to the students. If therefore, we 

 would have a scholarly, productive faculty, 

 by means of which to turn out a productive 



