688 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIX. No. 1008 



I shall confine my arguments to the one 

 field of scholarship with which I am most 

 familiar, and trust that my readers who 

 are most familiar with other fields will no- 

 tice the close parallelism to the predica- 

 ment in physics. And perhaps to those 

 also a solution similar to the one here pro- 

 posed will seem advisable. 



To avoid any tone of pessimism, the 

 views of the author will be presented in a 

 constructive way, with the subject-matter, 

 a plea for the physical institute in Amer- 

 ica; this institute to serve scholarship in 

 physics much as the physical institutes of 

 the German universities, the Royal Insti- 

 tution of England or the Cavendish Labor- 

 atory at Cambridge serve scholarship. 



America has not led in thought since the 

 days of Franklin. America follows 

 thought. Cofisider some of the recent 

 achievements in physical science; X-rays 

 and their nature, Hertzian waves, liquid air, 

 liquid helium, cathode rays, positive rays, 

 radium and radioactive bodies, alpha rays, 

 beta rays, the construction of matter, the 

 photo-electrons, the theories of radiation and 

 of fluorescence, the relations of heat conduc- 

 tivity to electrical conductivity. These 

 and practically every recently proposed 

 fundamental principle and important dis- 

 covery in modern physics has come from 

 abroad. But it is not necessary to make 

 any apologies in behalf of Yankee ingenu- 

 ity. I am speaking only in behalf of basic 

 knowledge. 



A PLEA FOR THE PHYSICAL INSTITUTE IN 

 AMERICA 



In making a plea for the physical insti- 

 tute in America I am making a plea for 

 greater efficiency in the development of 

 pure science in this country. It is be- 

 lieved that the time is overripe for the 

 segregation of a small group of the ablest 

 scholars in experimental and theoretical 



physics, who shall have all the inspiration 

 of close association with scholars in like 

 work, all the facilities that an immensely 

 wealthy country can provide, and who 

 shall be free from the routine work of 

 clerical management or the routine of 

 teaching of disinterested or incapable stu- 

 dents. The argument is simple and it is 

 believed irrefutable, and is presented with- 

 out in the least minimizing the value of a 

 scattered scholarship for the general in- 

 spiration of a student body and the general 

 public. 



The time is believed to be overripe be- 

 cause we are spending more money on 

 higher education per capita than any coun- 

 try of the globe, and at the same time it 

 would be bold to claim a second-rate place 

 for ourselves in the development of pure 

 physical science. The situation generally 

 in our universities is such as to discourage 

 the development of capable and promising 

 young men by management that encourages 

 faithfulness to second-rate ideals. We are 

 already on the verge of an over-production 

 of zealous and promising scholars, who 

 can see no future other than that of servi- 

 tude in the small college or with detail or 

 clerical work in a laboratory swarming 

 with students. Admit if you will that it is 

 all good work and also that the soul must 

 do penance, nevertheless the bright and ca- 

 pable young man, even if he has a vision, in- 

 sists on looking ahead to a life of respecta- 

 bility and achievement with an ultimate 

 freedom from the worries of the things of 

 life. 



Our commercial enterprises are just dis- 

 covering that much of this ability can be 

 easily and most profitably adapted to the 

 advancement of applied science. And it 

 must be said to their credit that they al- 

 ready bid fair to surpass most of our uni- 

 versities in pure science, even though their 

 ideal is admittedly to make scholarship 

 pay in the near immediate future. The 



