196 
Spartan care, and living a remarkably busy 
life, it is but natural that Dr. Brinton should 
become a prominent figure of his times. 
His death creates a void that must long be 
felt; yet few American scientists have left 
worthier monuments in the form of finished 
works.* WJM. 
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS BEFORE THE SO- 
CIETY FOR THE PROMOTION OF ENGI- 
NEERING EDUCATION.+ 
THE presidency of a Society which em- 
braces in its membership representatives of 
all the leading schools of engineering and 
applied science in this country is an honor 
which one may not lihgtly accept or indif- 
ferently bear. Although not established 
by its organic law, its traditions make it the 
duty of the presiding officer to present an 
address which should be, in spirit, at least, 
worthy of so important an occasion. Hap- 
pily for those upon whom this honor may 
fall, custom has not yet restricted or defined 
the sphere of discussion which shall be 
thought suitable for such a paper; on the 
contrary, one may properly take advantage 
of this opportunity to become temporarily 
a ronin, a free lance, attacking everything 
and everybody, seeking only to give full 
and fair exposition of one’s own personal, 
and, may be, peculiar views. This is the 
one compensation going with the burden 
which the Society insists must accompany 
the honors which it bestows. No apology 
is needed, therefore, for the selection of a 
topic the consideration of which may seem 
more or less irrelevant and unnecessary to 
some and, perhaps, unwelcome to others. 
In the present instance the choice is due to 
a strong conviction that schools of engi- 
neering are, for the most part, far from 
doing their full duty in an important mat- 
*The portrait published as frontispiece is from a 
photograph taken in April, 1898, by F. Gutekunst, 
Philadelphia. 
7 Given at the Annual Meeting, Columbus, Ohio, 
August 17, 1899. 
SCIENCE. 
[N.S. Vou. X. No. 242. 
ter, namely, the inculcation and dissemina- 
tion of sound views, both theoretical and 
practical, relating to scientific metrology. 
We cannot ignore the fact that the gen- 
eral public, even the intelligent public, re- 
ceives its information regarding scientific 
and technical questions almost entirely 
from daily newspapers and popular maga- 
zines, than which, we will all admit, there 
could hardly be a more untrustworthy 
source. The widespread taste for sensa- 
tionalism by which we are now cursed, a 
taste which seems to grow with the efforts 
made to satisfy it, offers a premium upon 
anything startling or revolutionary, giving 
little heed to sober, every-day truth. If 
one-tenth of the wonderful scientific dis- 
coveries that have been announced with 
glaring headlines in the public press within 
the last five years had actually been made it 
would, indeed, have been an epoch-making 
period ; but, fortunately for everybody, they 
existed mostly in the brilliant imagination 
of the space writers who alone were bene- 
fited by their publication. If this were all 
we could afford to be indifferent, but there 
is the further disagreeable fact that a large 
number of intelligent people are led to look 
upon this sort of thing as real science, and 
few of us have an adequate conception of 
the extent of this delusion. One of the re- 
sults is that in science, as in many other 
things, those who do the real work of the 
world fail to be credited with it, while the 
people are lavish in their praise of those 
whom they believe to be worthy. Only a 
few weeks since I found in an article on 
teaching history, written by the superin- 
tendent of schools in a large city, the names 
of a quartet of Americans most distin- 
guished in war and peace. Three of the four 
were Washington, Lincoln and Franklin. 
As this is not meant to bea humorous paper, 
I will not mention the fourth, contenting 
myself with saying that in this instance 
the newspaper had done its work well. 
