160 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIX. No. 996 



that the trade school will do its share to 

 break down the capitalistic regime. 



In the charmingly worded address given 

 by the then professor of jurisprudence and 

 politics at the sesquieentennial exercises of 

 Princeton University, the orator said: 



I am mucli mistaken if the scientific spirit of 

 the age is not doing us a great disservice, work- 

 ing in us a certain great degeneracy. Science has 

 bred in us a spirit of experiment and a contempt 

 for the past. It has made us credulous of quick 

 improvement, hopeful of discovering panaceas, 

 confident of success in every new thing. ... I 

 should fear nothing better than utter destruction 

 from a revolution conceived and led in the scien- 

 tific spirit. . . . Can any one wonder, then, that 

 1 ask for the old drill, the memory of times gone 

 by, the old schooling in precedent and tradition, the 

 old keeping of faith with the past, as a prepara- 

 tion for leadership in days of social change? . . . 

 I have had sight of the perfect place of learning 

 in my thought . . . calm Science seated there, 

 recluse, ascetic, like a nun, not knowing that the 

 world passes, not caring, if the truth but come in 

 answer to her prayer; and Literature, walking 

 within her open doors, in quiet chambers with 

 men of olden time, storied walls about her, and 

 calm views infinitely sweet; here "magic case- 

 ments, opening on the foam of perilous seas, in 

 fairy lands forlorn," to which you may with- 

 draw and use your youth for pleasure; ... its 

 air pure and wholesome with a breath of faith; 

 every eye vpithin it bright in the clear day and 

 quick to look toward heaven for the confirmation 

 of its hope. 



Fourteen years later the same speaker, with 

 his ear to the ground, heard better voices : 



The great voice of America does not come from 

 seats of learning. It comes in a murmur from 

 the hiQs arid woods and the farms and factories 

 and the mills, rolling on and gaining volume until 

 it comes to lis from the homes of common men. 

 Do these murmurs echo in the corridors of uni- 

 versities? I have not heard them. (Speech to 

 Pittsburgh alumni, April 17, 191U.) 



It is he who listened to the voice of de- 

 mocracy who has been chosen to be its 

 leader. 



While it is proper to protest against the 



undemocratic survivals in the universities 

 which we have inherited, the great services 

 which they have rendered and now perform 

 should not be forgotten. From the founda- 

 tion of the universities of Salerno, Bologna, 

 Paris and Oxford to the establishment of 

 the Johns Hopkins, Stanford and Chicago, 

 the university has been one of the principal 

 factors in the advancement of science and 

 in the progress of civilization. Three fourths 

 of our productive men of science are now 

 supported by universities. It is under the 

 ffigis of privilege and patronage that we 

 have passed into the dawn of democracy. 

 Our state universities are now assuming 

 leadership, and should be counted with the 

 public schools of which they are the head 

 as our greatest contribution to educational 

 progress and social welfare. The state uni- 

 versity, directly responsive to the utilita- 

 rian democracy on which it depends, open 

 to men and women on equal terms, selecting 

 from all the people of the state those most 

 fit for higher education and preparing them 

 directly for their work in life, devoted in 

 equal measure to teaching, research and 

 public service, holds high the standard 

 under which we move forward into the 

 newer world. 



There is a critical point in intelligence 

 at which it is understood that education 

 and productive science are the investments 

 that pay the highest interest. This na- 

 tion, thanks to the advances of science and 

 to its natural resources, has the means to 

 educate every child in the manner and to 

 the extent that is desirable for the individ- 

 ual and for society. It has the wealth to 

 make investments in scientific research to 

 the extent that men can be found to carry 

 on the work. The framers of the new in- 

 come tax estimate that the superfluous per- 

 sonal incomes amount to over eight billion 

 dollars annually, that is, the incomes which 

 some 400,000 families possess beyond $4,000 



