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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLVI. No. 1181 



everyday affairs of life. Every day life is 

 but a continual round of original research 

 for every successful physician, lawyer, 

 statesman or business man. And this is the 

 highest aim of our society, to encourage the 

 training of such students. As teachers our 

 pupils look to us for inspiration and he 

 only can give inspiration who knows the 

 joy of research himself. 



As a society for the mere giving of hon- 

 ors for scientific scholarship we have out- 

 grown our past, and indeed that was our 

 function only for a brief time. But we still 

 have a duty to encourage scholarship, for 

 without scholarship there can be no re- 

 search. It is human nature to seek honors. 

 Scientific men, like all others, from the 

 humblest to the greatest, welcome them, 

 whether it be membership in the Sigma Xi 

 or in the National Academy of Sciences. 

 Wlien honors come as rewards for meri- 

 torious work accomplished they cheer and 

 encourage; and they stimulate ourselves 

 and others to higher efforts. "We would not, 

 if we could, abolish honors for scholarship 

 from our society, we would not restrict 

 them to accomplished research. 



And our colleges and our nation need us 

 for the higher work; never was there 

 greater need for the work we can do, and 

 these dangerous days are impressing us 

 with that need. Until the milleniiun comes 

 when we shall all live in peace and har- 

 mony, and like the dinosaurs grow big, fat 

 and vulnerable and like them become ex- 

 tinct, the nation will need the utmost we 

 can do in science. 



Is it merely a coincidence that the life of 

 the Sigma Xi has been nearly synchronous 

 with the marvelous development of science 

 in America? When this society was born 

 there were but a few score of noted research 

 men in science, and but one or two special 

 societies in science. Now we number our 

 alumni by the thousands, active research 

 men by the hundreds, and scientific so- 



cieties by the score. Then it was necessary 

 for young men who would do things in sci- 

 ence to go abroad, and chiefly to Germany, 

 for their training. Who is there now who 

 finds it necessary to go abroad for lack of 

 suitable instruction here ? It was not many 

 years ago that I heard the justly famous 

 Dr. Koch, of Germany, say that America 

 was becoming the leader in medical educa- 

 tion and that soon it would be necessary 

 for foreign students to come here for their 

 best training. We have been told so many 

 times by our scientific friends abroad that 

 we are precocious but still undeveloped in 

 science that we have been inclined to be- 

 lieve them. But that time has passed. I 

 say, not in boastfulness, but in conscious 

 truth, that to-day America is doing more 

 research work in nearly every branch of 

 pure science than any other nation upon 

 the globe. And the quality of our work 

 suffers not in comparison. I have grown a 

 little weary of the common assumption that 

 we are still looking across the water for our 

 inspiration and guidance in scientific re- 

 search. 



We are doing more work, we are doing 

 quite as good work in pure science, not be- 

 cause we are any abler or better than other 

 people, and especially Germany, but because 

 ours is a democratic nation that gives to 

 every one opportunity and stimulus; be- 

 cause we are less bound by precedent, be- 

 cause the teachers of our colleges and uni- 

 versities are less creatures of control. In 

 Frankfurt-on-the-Main I was told, a few 

 years ago, that the national government 

 would not permit the privately endowed 

 university they were founding there to ap- 

 point its own faculty. It reserved the 

 privilege of making every professor a crea- 

 ture of the controlling government. Fancy 

 what our progress would have been in 

 America had a self-perpetuating cabinet of 

 the national government had the power to 



