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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLV. No. 1174 



pleted building, opportunity is afforded 

 for the expansion of this work several fold. 



A brief word for scientific research and I 

 am done. There is now nearing completion 

 in this city one of the most stupendous 

 works of engineering ever brought to a suc- 

 cessful completion. I refer to the new 

 water supply system. But what would the 

 city say to the proposition that it should 

 confine all of its efforts to building the 

 conduit for this water, and should leave to 

 some other city, or to some county, or to 

 the state, the expense and the work of pro- 

 viding the reservoir and keeping it ade- 

 quately supplied with water? The answer 

 does not need to be stated. 



But now transfer the simile to education. 

 What a sorry spectacle would be an insti- 

 tution such as ours, calling itself educa- 

 tional and scientific, and yet content to be 

 merely a conduit of information procured 

 from a fountain head located elsewhere, 

 and to which it made no contribution. It 

 is the supreme — the supreme — business and 

 duty of an institution like this, to be crea- 

 tive, productive; not merely a purveyor — 

 a channel of distribution. Our debt is to 

 science as well as to the people. We owe it 

 to the people to disseminate knowledge ; we 

 owe it to science not to be parasitic on the 

 body of knowledge, but organically con- 

 nected with it in a relationship of mutual- 

 ism — of mutually advantageous symbiosis 

 - — giving as well as receiving, constantly en- 

 riching the storehouse from which we draw. 

 This is the only relationship which makes 

 for healthful vigor, for perennial enthusi- 

 asm, for largest accomplishment, for the 

 most valuable and solid service to the com- 

 munity. Does the great metropolis of New 

 York wish otherwise — wish less than this 

 for its educational and scientific institu- 

 tions? I believe it does not. We are now 

 living in the early years of an epoch when 

 municipal support of the important work 

 of finding out and learning now is to be 



considered as important and proper a func- 

 tion of municipal government as acquiring 

 water sites and building aqueducts. 



In a recent address on ' ' The Support of 

 Scientific Research in a Democracy," Pro- 

 fessor James McKeen Cattell called atten- 

 tion to the fact that the manufactures of 

 the city of Pittsburgh and Allegheny county 

 are worth more than three hundred million 

 dollars a year. These manufactures have 

 all been made possible by the applications 

 of science. Ten per cent, of their value — 

 thirty million dollars a year — says Pro- 

 fessor Cattell, might to advantage be spent 

 in that city for the future advancement of 

 science under the auspices of the Univer- 

 sity of Pittsburgh. At first thought, this 

 proposition seems as startling to the "im- 

 practical" scientist as it does to the "hard- 

 headed" business man. But why should 

 this not be done? 



In a letter from the Secretary of the 

 Board of Water Supply of New York City, 

 I am informed that the land owned by New 

 York City about the Ashokan reservoir 

 covers a total of 15,254 acres. Six thou- 

 sand of these acres are forested with so- 

 called second growth of white oak, rock oak, 

 red maple, sugar maple, hemlock and white 

 pine. The letter contains this significant 

 sentence: "The chestnut growth is being 

 removed on account of mortality from 

 pests." There have been planted by 

 the city on this watershed over 1,470,000 

 coniferous trees, more than 1,000,000 of 

 which include six species of pine. The 

 present value of these pine trees may be 

 conservatively estimated at not less than 

 $1,000,000 dollars, and the value increases 

 from year to year — likewise their impor- 

 tance to the city's water supply. It is now 

 common knowledge that some of these spe- 

 cies of pine are being attacked by a fatal 

 disease, the blister rust, recently imported 

 into this country from Europe. Damage to 

 the extent of hundreds of millions of dol- 



