112 



SCIENCE. 



[N. o. Vol. XXIV. No. 604. 



of intelligent legislation— and the same 

 remedy will no doubt be efficiently applied 

 in due time to the evils attendant upon the 

 latter, to which the attention of the whole 

 country is now directed. 



To consolidation as such, I think there 

 can be no rational objection, and I will 

 hazard the opinion that competent young 

 men who are obliged to stand absolutely on 

 their own merits have a better chance to 

 succeed to-day than ever before in the his- 

 tory of the country. The time at my com- 

 mand — already, I fear, exhausted, as well 

 as your patience — does not admit here of 

 any extended discussion of this interesting 

 question. 



The * good old times ' were not as good as 

 these, and I believe that these are not as 

 good as those that are to come. Macaulay, 

 who so richly embellishes every subject he 

 touches, uses the following illustration: 



In truth, we are under a deception similar to 

 that which misleads the traveler in the Arabian 

 desert. Beneath the caravan all is dry and bare; 

 but far in advance and far in the rear is the 

 semblance of refreshing waters. The pilgrims 

 hasten forward, and find nothing but sand where, 

 an hour before, they had seen a lake; they turn 

 their eyes, and see a lake where, an hour before, 

 they were toiling through sand. A similar 

 illusion seems to haunt nations through every 

 stage of the long progress from poverty and bar- 

 barism to the highest degrees of opulence and 

 civilization. But, if we resolutely chase the 

 mirage backward, we shall find it recede before 

 us into the regions of fabulous antiquity. 



At no time has the question of the rights 

 of the people, as against those of the so- 

 called vested interests, been as prominent, 

 I may say as all-absorbing, as at this mo- 

 ment. Forty years ago the government 

 was encouraging the building of railroads 

 hy enormous grants of land. The chief 

 desire of the nation and the states was to 

 get the means of transportation at any cost. 

 The recent session of Congress has been 

 largely devoted to devising means for regu- 

 lating railroad rates — already at a lower 



point than any one twenty years ago would 

 have .dared to predict. I have no quarrel 

 with this wholesome legislation. I merely 

 use the incident as an illustration. This 

 is the day of the reasonable control of busi- 

 ness and of the elimination of abuses which 

 have inevitably sprung up alongside and 

 been dwarfed by an industrial development 

 more rapid and more stupendous than any 

 that the world has ever seen. In this im- 

 portant work, educated men and, above all, 

 technically educated men, should take the 

 lead, if it is to be well done, and done it 

 will be. The conscience of the country has 

 been qilickened as never before, largely, I 

 believe, through the initiative of the presi- 

 dent of the United States, who only needs 

 to see a wrong to exert all the prerogatives 

 of his great office to remedy it. 



Happy that land where the people gov- 

 ern; where education is not for the clois- 

 tered few but within the reach of every 

 child ; where the limits to ambition are only 

 those prescribed by the ability and disposi- 

 tion of the individual, and which advances 

 from generation to generation to better and 

 better things. 



Charles G. Washburn.* 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS. 

 The Biology of the Frog. By Samuel J. 

 Holmes, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Zool- 

 ogy in the University of Wisconsin. New 

 York, The Macmillan Co. 1906. $1.60 net. 

 A most useful addition to our text -books on 

 the frog. It presents not only the anatomy 

 and embryology but also the physiology and 

 natural history of the frog; so that for the 

 first time a single book covering the whole 

 ground of the biology of the frog is accessible 

 to teacher and student. 



The text of 358 pages is divided into nine- 

 teen chapters. The first places the particular 

 kind of frog (the leopard frog, Bana pipiens), 

 which is the chief subject of the volume, in 

 proper relation to other kinds of frogs and to 

 the salamanders by a brief consideration of 



