July 6, 1906.] 



SCIENCE. 



13 



the moral and the military humiliation of 

 France. Said Pasteur: 



France has done nothing to keep up, to propa- 

 gate and to develop the progress of science in our 

 country. * * * She has lived on her past, think- 

 ing herself great by the scientific discoveries to 

 which she owed her material prosperity, but not 

 perceiving that she was imprudently allowing the 

 sources of those discoveries to become dry. * * * 

 While Germany was multiplying her universities, 

 establishing between them the most salutary 

 emulation, bestowing honors and consideration on 

 the masters and doctors, creating vast labora- 

 tories amply supplied with the most perfect in- 

 struments, France enervated by evolutions, ever 

 seeking vainly for the best form of government, 

 was giving but careless attention to her establish- 

 ments for higher education. 



Each year shows more clearly how true 

 this view is, and how fully it applies to the 

 triumphs both of peace and of war. Japan 

 has even more profoundly impressed the 

 world by her knowledge of scientific fact 

 and by her rigid application of that knowl- 

 edge than by the valor and military skill 

 of her soldiers and sailors. No people are 

 more in need than our own of learning the 

 all-important lesson that the modern Ger- 

 mans and the modern Japanese have to 

 teach. Eespect for the man who knows and 

 loyalty to demonstrated truth are char- 

 acteristics of civilization that is founded 

 on rock. Our American happy-go-lucky, 

 wasteful way of approaching a serious 

 problem, our naive egotism and our exalta- 

 tion of the man who does things, no matter 

 how, must sooner or later give way to more 

 patient study, to more respect for the ex- 

 perience and wisdom of other countries 

 than our own, and to more regard for cor- 

 rectness and sound principle, than for a 

 superficial costly 'efficiency,' if we are to 

 hold the place in the world's esteem for 

 which we are rightfully ambitious. 



This institution is to be welcomed, then, 

 not alone for what it will do for medicine, 

 and not alone for what it will do indirectly 

 for the relief of suffering human beings. 



It is to be welcomed still more for the les- 

 sons it will teach to our public opinion; 

 for the guidance it will offer toward a 

 juster appreciation of the relations be- 

 tween theory and practise, between ob- 

 servation and reasoning; and for the as- 

 surance it affords that generous support is 

 to be had in this dear country of ours from 

 men of affairs for research of the highest 

 and most severe type. 



Of the subjects with which the institute 

 is to deal, when we reflect upon their va- 

 riety, their far-reaching importance and 

 their manifold relationships, can we say 



less than Faraday once wrote to Tyndall: 

 Our subjects are so glorious that to work at 

 them rejoices and encourages the feeblest, delights 

 and enchants the strongest. 



Nicholas Murray Butler. 



The educated public needs to obtain a 

 clearer idea than it now has of scientific 

 research, of its objects and results, and of 

 the character and capacity of the men who 

 devote themselves to it. The educated 

 classes have a tolerably accurate concep- 

 tion of research in such subjects as history 

 including antiquities, economics, philology, 

 law and government; for research in these 

 subjects relates chiefly to the past, remote 

 or near. The public has also been long 

 interested in the inventor's resourceful and 

 persevering habit of mind — the inventor 

 who is trying to make some new applica- 

 tion of acquired knowledge, or to discover 

 a new fact or principle which can be put 

 to commercial use. But scientific research 

 is somewhat different from these other 

 kinds of research. It has deep roots in the 

 past ; but its object is never to demonstrate 

 merely what has been done or said, or to 

 obtain a monopolistic profit. Invariably 

 its object is to extend the boundaries of 

 knowledge, and to win new power over 

 nature. It is not chiefly concerned to en- 

 large records of the past, or to make them 



