Apbil 26, 1918] 



SCIENCE 



409 



thought-out procedure bring success, where the ab- 

 sence of these lead only to disaster. 



You will remember that an attempt to 

 remedy this situation resulted in the or- 

 ganization of an ad%'isory board composed 

 mainly of eminent scientific Englishmen to 

 cooperate with a committee of the Privy 

 Council. An editorial in Nafrtre for 1915 

 says of this scheme : 



B7 its inception and publication the government 

 acknowledges and proclaims its appreciation of 

 the work of science, and by this acknowledgment 

 alone gives scientific workers that encouragement 

 and prestige in the eyes of the country which has 

 too long been withheld. 



May we not venture to note that in our 

 own land this propaganda on behalf of sci- 

 ence has been active and indeed effective 

 through the work of our universities for so 

 many years that we have almost forgotten 

 the early struggles of the advocates of this 

 type of educational work. 



I have said that it takes twenty years to 

 make a scientist. We often hear it said 

 that graduation, after four years of study, 

 is only the commencement of things. This 

 is nowhere more true than in the case of 

 the sciences. Real effective training in these 

 lines does not come and can not come ex- 

 cept as a result of application and toil and 

 devotion and the intensive training which 

 accompanies research work. See how wise 

 the great industries are in this respect. How 

 their research departments have grown in 

 number and what a corps of thoroughlj- 

 trained and theoretically trained men they 

 have put in charge. And not the pity of it 

 but the danger of it is that they are draw- 

 ing upon our universities for their best and 

 strongest men to direct and develop their 

 work. How long and to what extent will it 

 be wise to allow these inroads to be made 

 is a serious question, which perhaps can 

 wait awhile for settlement. The immedi- 

 ate and pressing obligation now is to con- 

 tinue without let or hindrance in the task 



of training men even more profoundly and 

 thoroughly in the fundamental theories of 

 the various sciences. To the universities, 

 to the Sigma Xi and to scientists every- 

 where this situation ought to come as a call 

 to the colors. Yours is not the glamor or 

 the pomp and circumstance of war but you 

 have the goods, and your quiet and stead- 

 fast continuance in the work of scientific 

 development has in it the very essence of 

 patriotism. Your satisfaction and compen- 

 sation must come from the witnessing on 

 every hand and from every line of scientific 

 endeavor to the inestimable value and far- 

 reaching influence that flows from your 

 work. 



The industrial world to-day not only wel- 

 comes but demands this type of trained 

 men. Their reception to-day as they leave 

 the universities is in marked contrast to 

 what it was twenty-five years ago. I recall 

 an editorial in one of our metropolitan 

 newspapers, written just at the time of 

 year, a long time ago it seems now, when 

 the universities were sending forth their 

 quota of graduates. Their inexperience 

 and unadaptableness to this worldly world 

 was expanded and more or less flippantly 

 dwelt upon under the caption, "What can 

 thej' do ? " In any review of what this type 

 of the genus homo is doing to-day in medi- 

 cine, in surgery, in sanitation, in food 

 products and food production, as seers, as 

 prophets, as wizards, if you please in un- 

 raveling and setting in order and at our 

 disposal the material things of the universe, 

 granted as I have already said that they 

 be given the necessary opportunity for 

 aftergrowth in lines of study and research 

 — there seems to come an echo from that 

 old-time newspaper dissertation which calls 

 for another article in quite a different vein 

 and indeed whose purpose would be to set 

 out in their proper perspective the work of 

 these same university products. The 



