May 24, 1901.] 
ton, picking up upon the seashore a few 
pebbles and discerning their lessons. 
At the close of our first decennium, two 
speakers were brought forward to tell, re- 
spectively, what had been the aims of this 
University in providing for the study of 
science and letters. These speakers were 
Professor Gildersleeve and Professor Row- 
land. They had no preliminary conference, 
but each brought his discourse to a close 
by a return to the key-note—the key-note 
which had governed and should govern our 
personal behavior and the harmonies of 
our associated lives as members of the 
Johns Hopkins University. 
Said the exponent of letters: ‘“ First and 
last, the scientific standard must be up- 
held for the university man, be he a stu- 
dent of letters, be he a physicist ; and that 
standard is the absolute truth, the ultimate 
truth. ‘ Nothing imperfect is the measure 
of anything,’ says the prince of idealists.” 
Said the man of science: ‘‘ But for my- 
self, I value in a scientific mind most of all 
that love of truth, that care in its pursuit, 
and that humility of mind which makes 
the possibility of error always present more 
than any other quality. This is the mind 
which has built up modern science to its 
present perfection, which has laid one stone 
upon the other with such care that it to- 
day offers to the world the most complete 
monument to human reason. This is the 
mind which is destined to govern the 
world in the future and to solve problems 
pertaining to politics and humanity as well 
as to inanimate nature, 
“Tt is the only mind which appreciates 
the imperfections of the human reason and 
is thus careful to guard against them. It 
is the only mind that values the truth as 
it should be valued and ignores all personal 
feeling in its pursuit. And this is the mind 
the physical laboratory is built to culti- 
vate.” 
These are words worthy to be recalled 
SCIENCE. 
803 
by the successive groups of students who 
come here for instruction and counsel as 
the years roll on. Let us sacredly cherish 
our inheritance. 
In closing, let me call our departed 
brother, our dear colleague, our honored 
teacher, our ornament, our pride and our 
delight, by another nobler title. He was a 
servant of the Lord. If one who leads a 
life of purity, fidelity and integrity, and 
who consecrates, without self-seeking, his 
strength, his talents, his time, at home and 
at his laboratory, in health and in bodily 
infirmities, in youth and in maturity, to the 
interpretation of the laws by which the cos- 
mos is governed, is a servant of the Lord, 
—then reverently and truly we may say of 
our departed friend he was a servant of the 
Lord, Maker of heaven and earth. Let 
me apply to him words of the Master, whom 
he was taught from childhood to revere. 
His ‘eye was single’ and ‘ his whole body 
was full of light.’ 
DANIEL C. GILMAN. 
JOHNS HopKINS UNIVERSITY. 
AN OUTLINE OF THE PROGRESS OF CHEM- . 
ISTRY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.* 
CHEmistTRY is one of the youngest of the 
natural sciences. Its growth and develop- 
ment have taken place almost entirely in 
the past one hundred years. Nevertheless, 
it is well to remember that some of the 
foundation stones of the science were laid 
in the latter part of the eighteenth century. 
There was no such thing as a science of 
chemistry in the time of the ancient Greeks 
and Romans. Nor during the middle ages, 
nor previous to the year 1750 can there be 
said to have been any systematized chemi- 
cal knowledge. 
In the middle of the eighteenth century 
the attempt was made to explain in a gen- 
eral way that most striking of all ordinary 
* Address delivered before the Academy of Science 
at St. Louis, on March 18th. 
