JUNE 28, 1912] 
Harvard and Yale, of Columbia and 
Princeton, and of Johns Hopkins sw gen- 
eris, fully attest. May they not neglect 
their privilege and abandon their peculiar 
work! 
What the endowed universities have suc- 
cessfully and naturally done for genera- 
tions some of the state universities are now 
attempting against opposition of every sort. 
How successful, judging only by the test of 
quality, not of numbers, these universities 
will be in producing statesmen, jurists, 
economists and explorers in the fields of 
pure science, it is still too early to say. 
To recognize these in embryo, to train these 
young people for their distinctive careers, 
is easier for the endowed university than 
for that of the state, provided only that the 
endowed university, realizing its privilege 
and confining its efforts to its special field, 
does its duty. This, I take it, is the special 
service which the endowed university can 
perform, its reason for existence by the 
side of the university of the state, not copy- 
ing it, not competing with it, but supple- 
menting it, training leaders. 
Their numbers, their courses, limited by 
their incomes, the endowed universities 
may remain small with no sense of shame 
or of failure. The Rookwood Pottery is 
smaller than many a brick-yard, yet all are 
needed, all are useful. In the space and 
quiet of ‘‘the yard’’ or of the quadrangle 
there is time for reflection, for review, 
which in the past have led to real contribu- 
tions to knowledge or to thought. The 
scholar’s life and the scholar’s product, not 
fostered by the conditions of office or con- 
sulting-room, may continue if the endowed 
universities recognize and cherish their 
high privilege, serving the state and the 
world with their own peculiar talent, not 
copying the form or attempting the task 
of their huge neighbors, not seeing in them 
rivals but friends. May these allies, real- 
SCIENCE 
977 
izing their privileges, their distinctive op- 
portunities, win the glories of their recog- 
nized usefulnesses! 
GEORGE J. PEIRCE 
LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY 
RESEARCH ON THE SMOKE PROBLEM AT 
THE DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRIAL 
RESEARCH OF THE UNIVERSITY 
OF PITTSBURGH 
SMOKE exists to a greater or less extent in 
every city where soft coal is burned. The 
‘world at large has not, up to the past few 
years, regarded it as a waste. It has been 
considered synonymous with prosperity. Its 
right to cloud the heavens has been tradi- 
tional. The enormity of this evil is fast be- 
ing forced upon the public attention so that 
the manner in which it is being combated in 
the big metropolitan centers affords an inter- 
esting and profitable subject for study. 
Strange to relate, when one stops to con- 
sider the breadth of interest and importance 
of this problem, together with the fact that so 
many thousands have worked on its various 
phases, and that so much has been written and 
is being written on the subject, still no coor- 
dinated effort of one group of men has been 
made to undertake a scientific study of the 
problem as a whole. One of Pittsburgh’s 
most public-spirited citizens, a man devoted 
to the city’s welfare, recognizing this fact, has 
established a fellowship of $12,000 per year 
with the department of industrial research of 
the University of Pittsburgh for the scientific 
investigation of this problem. 
We have an unpretentious laboratory, desig- 
nated as the “smoke house,” a small, fireproof 
building, 18 feet wide and 30 feet long, which 
is situated at a sufficient distance from the 
main laboratory, so that the smoke in quanti- 
ties as great as we may need in our work can 
be made without interfering with the other 
researches being carried on. In this building 
there is a furnace, so constructed that it is 
possible, by varying conditions, to get any kind 
of coal smoke. This statement may, perhaps, 
appear peculiar to those who have always con- 
sidered smoke as just smoke, but our studies 
