246 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLIX, No. 1263 



was also a source of mecliamcal inventions 

 .which until the other day seemed to us fan- 

 tastic. "We imitate also" says the com- 

 placent president of Salomon's House 

 "flights of birds: we have some degree of 

 flying in the air. . . . We have ships and 

 .bo'a;ts for going under water ... ". Here 

 was a departmerit of engineering to coax 

 endowment or release appropriations ! 



But this is not a company to he interested 

 in mere material things. The Hopkins tra- 

 dition sets store not by buildings but by 

 pien. In the personnel and organization 

 you will not be disappointed. Twelve trav- 

 eling fellows were always abroad, exchange 

 professors gathering information, books 

 and apparatus. In residence, three men 

 prepared catalogues of experiments; other 

 three made lists of mechanical discoveries; 

 a third (triumvirate, known as "pioneers" 

 undertook new investigations; then expert 

 compilers assembled 'all results systemati- 

 cally. At this point there was a differen- 

 tiation into applied science and pure re- 

 search. On the one hand, fellows called 

 "benefactors" worked out practical utili- 

 ties for daily life. On the other, after gen- 

 eral staff consultations, three advanced 

 specialists planned further investigations 

 whieh were carried out by the most skillful 

 researchers called "inoculators." The 

 work was crowned by ' ' interpreters of na- 

 ture" who "raise former discoveries into 

 greater observations, axioms and aphor- 

 isms." We may smile at the elaborate di- 

 vision of labor and the quaint titles, but 

 we realize that Queen Elizabeth's pliant 

 (Courtier had firm hold upon the real sub- 

 stance of scientific research. 

 • The College of the Six Days ' Works was 

 not wholly a cloistered center of pure in- 

 vestigation. It had a university exrtension 

 department which maintained "circuits of 

 visits of divers principal cities." Peripa- 

 tetic lecturers published "such new, profit- 



lable inventions as we think good." There 

 were specialists who gave advice about dis- 

 easesj plagues, noxious insects, earthquakes, 

 inundations and other disconcerting phe- 

 nomena. These counsellors were appar- 

 ently like our county-agricultural agents, 

 land public health officials. This much is 

 significant. Salomon's House dealt di- 

 rectly with the ultimate consumers of sci- 

 entific informaition and expert advice. The 

 popularizing middle man who purveys 

 whait a fastidious friend calls "Sunday 

 Supplement Science" seems not to have 

 been known in the "New Atalantis." 



The ideals which Bacon cherished three 

 hundred years ago are our guides to-day: 

 the area of man's scientific interest world- 

 wide ; the search for truth in itself a noible 

 end; the training of scholars a means at 

 once of social inheritance and of leader- 

 ship ; the application of knowledge to the 

 common, daily life an inspiring service ; the 

 diffusion of education a condition of prog- 

 fress. To promote these things is the pur- 

 pose of the modern university. During the 

 last fifty years in the United States rapid 

 advance has been made in the material 

 equipment of our universities. The inner 

 intellectual and spiritual development has 

 been a slower growth. The older institu- 

 tions have made impor'tant contributions. 

 To this honored university whose begin- 

 nings we celebrate on this anniversary 

 this nation owes a debt of gratitude. Here 

 a group of high-minded and devoted schol- 

 ars established a tradition of pure research 

 which has profoundly affected higher edu- 

 cation in this country, and has been recog- 

 nized beyond our borders. Salomon's 

 Houses have been firmly founded in an- 

 other Atalantis. 



, It is to be noted that university methods 

 and spirit are gradually drawing under 

 their influence abnost every phase of educa- 

 tion. Engineering training of the highest 



