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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1145 



will help to the end aimed at. "Whether the 

 Scripps Institution shall or shall not turn out 

 to be useful to mankind, the foundational 

 motive upon which it rests is a faith in the 

 value of science, especially biological science, 

 far more concrete and deep and broad than 

 that which seems to be held by most men of 

 science; and this is in large measure due to 

 E. W. Scripps. I must explain. By native 

 inclination the study of nature understood in 

 much the sense of " the contemplation of 

 nature " favored by naturalists a few genera- 

 tions ago, is to me one of the most exalting 

 occupations the human mind can have. Dur- 

 ing the early part of my apprenticeship in sci- 

 ence this feeling found great encouragement 

 through the teachings and life of Joseph Le 

 Conte, with whom at the University of Cali- 

 fornia I came, as student and later as teacher, 

 into close contact. Then there was a period of 

 that intense specialization indispensable to 

 progress in modern science, and with it the 

 narrowing of interest and outlook and sym- 

 pathy so likely to accompany such speciali- 

 zation. It was in this period of intensified 

 specialization and concomitantly narrowed 

 horizon that the early stages of development of 

 the marine biological work which led to the 

 present institution fell ; and it was also in this 

 period that my acquaintance with Mr. Scripps 

 began. I saw him first in the summer of 

 1903, and the circumstances of the meeting 

 were typical of my whole association with him. 

 Our " marine laboratory " that year was a por- 

 tion of the boat house on Glorietta Bite, 

 Coronado, this space having been generously 

 given us by the Coronado Beach Company. 

 Mr. Scripps came on purpose to see what was 

 going on, and the thing that especially struck 

 me was his lively, pushing, obviously sincere 

 interest in the details of our work. His visit 

 was no mere hasty, listless walk' through the 

 room with a few more or less relevant remarks 

 designed primarily to tell us in the least 

 offensive way possible how really insignificant 

 the whole thing was in his eyes. But with a 

 sort of child-like eagerness he insisted upon 

 being shown something about what each of 

 the half dozen workers was doing. Here in- 



deed was " something new under the sun " — at 

 least to me. A man who, though the central 

 figure in a great business, could yet drive 

 twenty miles to visit a puny little scientific 

 establishment and, though an entire stranger 

 to such a place, could show an interest in not 

 merely the enterprise but the actual work that 

 was obviously genuine and, as to broad fea- 

 tures, remarkably intelligent! 



A part of my regular duty for a number of 

 years had been to solicit private funds for 

 our struggling enterprise and I had succeeded 

 to some extent in interesting several men of 

 large means in certain aspects of it, chiefly, 

 perhaps, that of how to " let me down " with 

 a minimum of disappointment to me and cost 

 to them. But a few of these men had gone well 

 beyond this and had shown real interest in 

 the general idea of a marine laboratory and 

 had done considerable work and promised to 

 give substantial sums toward accomplishing 

 the end. But never before had I found an 

 interest that was not merely in the general 

 idea or in me personally or professionally, but 

 in science — in biology — as such. 



Through the intervening years of associa- 

 tion with Mr. Scripps, much of the time in 

 the most intimate way, even as to the scientific 

 work of the undertaking, not only have I 

 never heard him so much as hint that any 

 fragment of scientific knowledge or piece of 

 research might be valueless, but his whole atti- 

 tude and not infrequently his expression have 

 been that of recognition of the inherent worth 

 and dignity of natural knowledge, and most of 

 all, of faith in science, especially, again, in 

 biology, as the very foundation of rational hu- 

 man life in modern society. No scientific man, 

 LeConte possibly excepted, with whom I hava 

 ever come in contact, has had so broad, so deep, 

 so unfaltering and withal so intelligent a belief 

 in the greatness and human worth of science, 

 as Mr. Scripps. 



Such a conception of nature, and of science 

 as the rational interpretation of nature, held 

 by a man endowed by birth with very unusual 

 powers of mind, but, academically speaking, 

 quite undisciplined in science, and eminently 

 successful in business, has influenced my 



