August 3, 1906.] 



SCIENCE. 



131 



ing breeds brain fag, wbieh kills the joy 

 of knowing and doing. Here again the 

 personal equation comes in, and to a larger 

 degree. Some men do their best work 

 gregariously — directing, controlling and 

 stimulating the interest of others. Some 

 can work well only when alone and undis- 

 turbed. Some kinds of work demand un- 

 interrupted attention for a period. Some 

 require special visits to libraries, to mu- 

 seums, or to distant lands. All these mat- 

 ters should receive consideration by univer- 

 sity authorities. The plan of giving each 

 year, on full pay, absolute freedom to one 

 or two professors engaged in research, the 

 same privilege later to be extended to 

 others, is one which deserves general adop- 

 tion. This absence should mean a year for 

 work, not for rest, nor travel, nor for 

 writing text-books. The present sabbatical 

 arrangement will serve for these, but the 

 pursuit of science demands something more 

 than half-pay furloughs. The university 

 authorities should consider these things, 

 and so should the competent worker who 

 must be the final judge of his own work 

 and his own needs. 



An obstacle in the way of this and vari- 

 ous other forms of relief which inure to 

 the gain of the university lies in the need 

 of personal discrimination, to which gov- 

 erning boards are painfully averse. The 

 mediocre worker is with us, as well as the 

 man who can not investigate at all, A 

 form of senatorial courtesy obtains in all 

 university faculties. Without it, team 

 work, or work as a cooperative body of 

 scholars, would be impossible. But this 

 very fact forms an obstacle to the relief of 

 those men who could make the best use of 

 freedom. 



Among young men who have done a little 

 work, there is too much conceit of research, 

 and overmuch desire to secure at once its 

 rewards. Research pays its own way and 



asks no reward. Moreover, overmuch cack- 

 ling indicates that eggs are really small 

 and few. Not all who talk of research, 

 even in Germany, shall enter the kingdom. 

 Perfunctory work, work done for the pur- 

 pose of catching the attention of the easily 

 deceived college president, work done to be 

 heard from, all these count for very little. 

 Freedom from teaching might only increase 

 the quantity, making its badness more vis- 

 ible. This fact the Carnegie Institution 

 has served to make plain, in its dealings 

 with some of our callow doctors of phi- 

 losophy. 



Moreover, the real investigator will fol- 

 low his own bent. The disposition of our 

 young men 'to paddle in the same pool,' 

 to rush toward each new field where some- 

 thing is proposed, is a symptom of incom- 

 petence. There are fads in investigation, 

 and while the fad is on, the product is 

 scanty. In general, all fields of research 

 are open alike, and they have always been 

 open. Each excursion into one of them is 

 rewarded according to its deserts. In this 

 quest single-heartedness and broad-mind- 

 edness are the elements which count for 

 most. Cleverness, technique, speed, self- 

 confidence, facility, versatility, perfection 

 of method even— all these are matters of 

 equipment of minor importance. Too often 

 novelty in work is unduly exalted. Much 

 which we call method is only the trick of 

 making a very small discovery appear 

 epoch-making through bolstering of bib- 

 liography, philosophy and historical criti- 

 cism. 



In general, the investigator will wish to 

 publish his results. The instinct of the 

 teacher impels him to do this. Yet it is 

 true that publication is a very poor test of 

 research. Some men keep their results for 

 years— for many years— holding them until 

 their conclusions are ripened, their sup- 

 positions verified. A voluminous bibliog- 



