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SCIENCE 



[ J^. S. Vol. XXVIII. No. 721 



pointments and even failures of this enter- 

 prise we need not dwell. At one period the 

 Johns Hopkins suffered heavy financial losses, 

 and its resources have always fallen far short 

 of its ideals. But hampered as the university 

 has been by lack of money, of equipment, and 

 of men, it has yet been one of the most potent 

 forces in elevating the intellectual standards 

 of our colleges. The young men who gathered 

 at the Johns Hopkins in the early days under 

 Gildersleeve, Rowland, Eemsen, and Sylvester 

 were filled with enthusiasm for exact and ex- 

 tensive learning. There is always, we grant, 

 the danger that vast erudition will not become 

 assimilated and humanized; that it will re- 

 main mere pedantry. This peril the gradu- 

 ates of Johns Hopkins incurred; and some of 

 them did not wholly escape it. But in the 

 seventies and eighties our education was less 

 Germanized than now and in an era of slip- 

 shod training, Johns Hopkins offered the kind 

 of severe drill that was sorely needed. The 

 graduates carried the gospel of a rigorous 

 scholarship from one end of the country to 

 the other, and made it more and more neces- 

 sary for teachers, both in college and school, 

 to be masters of their subject. This was per- 

 haps Dr. Oilman's greatest contribution to the 

 cause of education in America. How great 

 it is we can not yet estimate; for the men 

 whom he and his faculty prepared for teach- 

 ing are yet with us, distinguished in their 

 various callings, and we can not view their 

 labors in proper perspective. 



It was Dr. Oilman's fortunate lot also to 

 guide the Carnegie Institution of Washington 

 in its first three years. The conception of 

 foundations for scientific research had made 

 very slight headway in this country. We have 

 had a few laboratories that are endowed, and 

 here and there a university has been willing 

 to maintain a professor — say, in astronomy — 

 who is not expected to teach, but who can 

 devote his energies to extending the limits 

 of our knowledge. But the notion of re- 

 search, without prospect of return in cash 

 dividends, has not appealed to a utilitarian 

 people. More than that, few colleges, tmder 

 the pressure of undergraduates demanding 

 instruction, have been able to set aside funds 



that did not seem immediately productive. 

 The Carnegie Institution, then, like the Johns 

 Hopkins, was established at a moment of need. 

 We can not doubt that in the long run it will 

 do as much, perhaps even more, to raise the 

 standards and the tone of scholarship in 

 America. It was fortunate in receiving its 

 first shaping from the hands of a man of Mr. 

 Gilman's long experience and wide views. — 

 New York Evening Post. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 

 The Harvey Lectures. Delivered under the 

 Auspices of The Harvey Society of New 

 York, 1906-7, by Professors A. E. Wright, 

 C. A. Herter, W. T. Porter, J. G. Adami, 

 F. G. Benedict, E. B. Wilson, George S. 

 Huntington, W. T. Councilman, Priedrich 

 MiJLLER and Dr. S. J. Meltzer. Pp. 1-314. 

 Philadelphia and London, J. B. Lippincott 

 Company. 1908. 



The appearance of this volume marks the com- 

 pletion of the second year of the Harvey Society. 

 Starting more or less as an experiment based on 

 the assumption that there was a desire on the 

 part of practitioners of medicine to acquire at 

 first hand from men engaged in research more 

 knowledge concerning the scientific problems and 

 principles underlying their profession, the Harvey 

 Society has made for itself a permanent place as 

 a factor in higher medical education. Its useful- 

 ness is no longer a matter of doubt, but is now an 

 assured fact. Nor is its sphere a local one, since 

 through the publication of its lectures, these are 

 brought within reach of all. 



This paragraph from the preface of the 

 present volume states concisely the position 

 of the Harvey Society. The society was 

 organized in 1905 for the purpose of bringing 

 before medical practitioners the results of im- 

 portant scientific investigation in medical and 

 allied fields. It has a membership of one 

 hundred and seventy-five investigators or prac- 

 titioners of New York City, and has now held 

 three courses of lectures. Those of the first 

 course were published in 1906, those of the 

 third course are soon to appear, and the pres- 

 ent volume includes the ten lectures of the 

 second course. Foreign men of science are 

 represented by two men of distinction: Sir 



