August 17, 1917] 



SCIENCE 



151 



nominate every teacher in every college of 

 our land ! 



These are some of the reasons, I am sure, 

 for our remarkable development in pure 

 science during the past forty years, some of 

 the reasons why we may look forward to 

 still greater progress in the coming years. 

 Has our society had no part in this prog- 

 ress? Shall its part in the future be 

 greater, or less? Do our colleges and uni- 

 versities stiU have need of us to strengthen, 

 to sustain? 



In one great side of science, however, for 

 which our society stands, we, as a nation, 

 have failed as compared with others, and 

 especially Germany. Applied science, I 

 mean, or at least some branches of it. Eng- 

 land is awakening to its negligence in the 

 past ; never in the history of the empire has 

 the scientific man of Britain been more ap- 

 preciated than he is at present. And there 

 is a new epoch for America coming soon. 

 We have our Langleys, our Maxims, our 

 Bells, Edisons and Wrights of whom we are 

 proud, but our colleges have not had much 

 share in their production, and we in the 

 pure sciences are still a little inclined to 

 look askance at them as the antithesis of 

 that supposed ideal of our famous chemist. 

 Has the Sigma Xi done all that it should 

 in the past to encourage the applied sci- 

 ences? Shall we give greater encourage- 

 ment to the student who counts the bristles 

 in a mosquito's proboscis or the plasmodia 

 in its stomach than to him who applies that 

 knowledge to the prevention of yellow 

 fever? Does it require less ability, less re- 

 search to observe, to discriminate, to judge 

 in the construction of an airplane or a talk- 

 ing machine than to trace the fibers of a 

 cerebral ganglion, or reconstruct the back- 

 bone of a dinosaur? Have we done what 

 we should? Or shall we frankly restrict 

 ourselves to the encouragement of research 

 in pure science and leave its application 

 for others to further, to encourage? I be- 



lieve that the decision is now before us, and 

 upon our answer depends much of the fu- 

 ture of our society. Trained as a young 

 man in two professions of applied science, 

 and the most of my life given to research 

 in science so pure that its application to 

 things practical seems remote in the ex- 

 treme, perhaps my sympathies with both 

 are more pronounced than usual. I can see 

 no difi'erence in the quality of research that 

 I gave to locating a railroad line, the treat- 

 ment of a patient with measles, or the re- 

 construction of a paleozoic reptile. It 

 would be a misfortune for us, I earnestly 

 believe, to restrict ourselves to the encour- 

 agement of research in pure science. 



A great future, I am sure, for science in 

 America is its application, and the greater 

 efficiency we reach in making use of the 

 many discoveries of pure science for the 

 amelioration and improvement of our con- 

 ditions as a nation, the higher will be the 

 honors, the greater encouragement we shall 

 receive in the discovery of new facts and 

 of new laws ; the more honorable, the more 

 appreciated will be the profession of the 

 research student in pure science. 



Because we as a society have not done all 

 that I think we should have done in the 

 encouragement of the applied sciences, nu- 

 merous rival societies in our technological 

 schools have come into existence. We are 

 all working for the same objects, why 

 should our efforts be weakened by rivalries ? 

 Why should we not all be united in a single 

 great organization for the promotion of all 

 branches and sides of science ? I feel sure 

 that the greater extension and the greater 

 usefulness of the Sigma Xi has been hamp- 

 ered by our lack of accord in our ideals. 

 Some of our chapters grant membership 

 almost wholly for high scholarship, others 

 exclusively to graduate students who have 

 accomplished or are accomplishing meri- 

 torioiis research work. And this lack of 

 unanimity has prevented, I am sure, the 



