490 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. You L. No. 1300 



tance of science in a future great war in case 

 there will be another. Perhaps the imme- 

 diate deyelopment of applied sciences will be 

 retarded by the feeling of security which a 

 League of Nations may foster but pure sci- 

 ence, which constitutes the foundation of ap- 

 plied science, is in need of calmer times for 

 its most vigorous and systematic development. 

 While war exhibits forcibly the need of sci- 

 ence, times of peace create the atmosphere 

 for scientific growth from the bottom, and 

 the great role which science played in the 

 recent war was doubtless largely due to the 

 long period of comparative peace which pre- 

 ceded it. 



One of the most striking events in the 

 history of science has been the recent termi- 

 nation of former international scientific or- 

 ganizations and the steps towards the forma- 

 tion of new ones with a greatly increased 

 amoimt of machinery. The whirl of organi- 

 zation machinery like the thunder of the 

 cannon may seiwe to exhibit needs of science 

 but it can scarcely be expected to create an 

 atmosphere suited for the best scientific 

 growth. If the scientific organizations are to 

 become as complex as our American univer- 

 sity organizations, so that those who secure 

 the most prominent positions are administra- 

 tive experts instead of eminent representa- 

 tives of scholarship and research, there is 

 good ground for misgivings at the present 

 time. 



A possible portent of great significance not 

 only in the history of science but also in the 

 history of education in general is the dis- 

 turbed money condition which enables one to 

 secure at present foreign books at an un- 

 usually low price. I recently paid a bill for 

 some French books which were contained in 

 a parcel post shipment made by a German 

 firm shortly before we entered the war and 

 were siezed in transit by the British govern- 

 ment. I had to pay less than one fifth of the 

 pre-war price for these books as a result of 

 the small present relative value of the Ger- 

 man mark. 



If somewhat similar conditions prevail for 

 a considerable time it seems likely that Amer- 

 ica will secure an unusually large amount of 



the literature now stored in Germany. As a 

 result thereof our scholars may soon enjoy 

 the best library facilities in the world and 

 with this should come greater initiative espe- 

 cially along historical lines. Europeans have 

 often made fun of our magnificent library 

 buildings containing a comparatively small 

 number of books. It is to be hoped that this 

 number will soon be greatly increased as 

 books are the most inexpensive educational 

 agencies even in normal times and many of 

 the older good books are likely to be sold at 

 abnormally low prices for some time. 



^Notwithstanding these present special in- 

 terests in the history of science, teachers 

 should have a deeper interest in the per- 

 manent features of this history. Prominent 

 among these features is the element of im- 

 perfection. Who is not interested when he 

 first learns that Paciuolo the author of a very 

 influential Italian work printed towards the 

 end of the fifteenth century, tried to har- 

 monize the facts that in Genesis the term 

 " multiply " is used in the sense of increasing 

 while if we multiply a proper fraction by a 

 proper fraction we get a smaller product than 

 either factor ? Paciuolo concluded that in- 

 creasing meant getting further away from 

 unity; e. g., 4 • §:=J, and J is further from 

 unity than either i or J. In this way he 

 thought he had explained the term multiply 

 as regards proper fractions so as to be in 

 accord with its use in the Bible. 



Not an insignificant element of the edu- 

 cational value of the history of science is the 

 opportunity which this history affords to in- 

 spire the student by the knowledge of having 

 a clearer understanding of some scientific 

 facts that the intellectual giants of earlier 

 times had. If he is inclined to regard the 

 rigorous geometrical demonstration of Euclid 

 as superhimian he may be led to view the 

 matter in a truer light by noting that Euclid 

 was ignorant of the use of zero as a number 

 as well as of the advantages of negative niun- 

 bers. If he is dazzled by the deep mathe- 

 matical insight of Newton he may realize his 

 own mathematical advantages better when he 

 learns that Newton knew nothing of the 



