July 12, 1912] 



SCIENCE 



37 



the actual attention to this phase of the 

 work has been, as all must realize, a very- 

 minor matter. No more, I grant, than has 

 been the ease in most states where similar 

 conditions exist; no more, perhaps, than 

 seems necessary from the important prob- 

 lems pressing for solution along geological 

 lines. I submit, however, that it is hardly 

 the proper thing to get a survey established 

 with the support of two bodies of workers 

 and then devote aU the resources to one 

 line of work, and this condition prevails in 

 far too many states where the so-called 

 geological and natural history surveys are 

 doing little or no biological work, and 

 often that little as a purely gratuitous serv- 

 ice from devoted workers. 



Speaking now as an outsider and view- 

 ing the matter from a distance it appears 

 to me that here is one enterprise that this 

 academy might make one of its pet proj- 

 ects. If a thorough and systematic biolog- 

 ical survey can not be pushed forward 

 under the present organization so as to 

 secure accurate knowledge as to the biolog- 

 ical resources of the state, then let the bio- 

 logical workers get together to secure pro- 

 vision for the work under some other form 

 of organization. 



But I should remember that I have not 

 been invited here to give advice and I am 

 too well aware of the energy with which 

 the Iowa people can advance the projects 

 in which they believe to feel that advice is 

 needed. 



On such an occasion as this it seems al- 

 most a necessity to attempt some review of 

 the progress made in the lines of work for 

 which we stand, but in addressing myself 

 to this task I am more than ever impressed 

 with the rapidity of this progress and my 

 inability to discuss it. This survey applies 

 more especially to the last quarter century, 

 as this is the period most familiar to me, 

 and of which I can speak most intelli- 

 gently. 



So many principles of fundamental im- 

 portance in science have been discovered 

 or elucidated during the quarter century 

 that it makes a pretty full record if one 

 makes the attempt to compass it. Among 

 those of especial interest are the determi- 

 nations concerning the kinetic theory of 

 matter, the progress concerning certain 

 phases of the theory of evolution, the newer 

 aspects of the theories for cosmic evolution, 

 the application of Mendel's law in the prob- 

 lems of heredity, the atomic theory of elec- 

 tricity, and of course numerous others which 

 we can not stop to mention. In some of 

 these there has been such a complete change 

 of view that one who goes back to his school 

 science of a quarter century ago must feel 

 quite lost in the light of new discoveries 

 or imagine himself to have been uncon- 

 scious for a period and waked up in a new 

 era. 



There is perhaps no field or phase of 

 science in which the change of attitude has 

 been more prominent than in the applica- 

 tion of science to the problems of every-day 

 life. Science and human welfare, as repre- 

 sented in industry, in public health and 

 sanitation, in the betterment of social con- 

 ditions, are being linked closer and closer 

 together and the progress in the past quar- 

 ter century has been more rapid than in 

 any other period of the world's history. 



To review the different branches of ap- 

 plied science and to show the details of 

 progress in each would be an impossible 

 task for one person in a brief address and, 

 moreover, much of it is an oft-repeated 

 and familiar tale. We all know something 

 of the marvelous strides in medicine and 

 surgery, one of the most conspicuous fields 

 of science in relation to human welfare, 

 though I doubt if any of us outside the 

 body of active workers in this particular 

 field realize the revolutionary changes that 

 have taken place in surgical methods and 

 therapeutic agencies as a result of the ap- 



