1008 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XV. No. 391. 



shrink and trickle away until little is left 

 but tlie sawdust whicli we usually asso- 

 ciate with the preservation of that com- 

 modity. Under the stimulus of research 

 this is impossible, for research into the 

 new implies a full and minute mastery of 

 that branch of knowledge in which the re- 

 search is being conducted. Hence if no 

 other advantage resulted a good case might 

 be made out along this line of argument. 



This stimulus to the professor would re- 

 act with increased force upon the student. 

 It was a favorite saying of a certain cele- 

 brated artist that those who follow after 

 others rarely outstrip them. To hold up 

 before the student either by theory or 

 practice solely the ideal of acquiring what 

 has already been learned is medieevalism 

 pure and simple ; it is to teach him to creep 

 where he might walk upright and alone; 

 it is to rob him in part of that intellectual 

 birthright of independent thought which 

 is the inheritance of every man, at least 

 since the Renaissance. It is sometimes 

 objected that the results attained by re- 

 search students are often trivial or futile. 

 I am disposed, however, to agree with a re- 

 mark made by one of George Eliot's 

 characters: "Failure after long perse- 

 verance is much grander (and I would say 

 parenthetically more useful) than never to 

 have a striving good enough to be called a 

 failure." It is sometimes also urged that 

 research in the immature student leads to 

 superficiality and conceit. I cannot but 

 think this fear ill-grounded. It has been 

 proved on the contrary that nothing will 

 so quickly ripen and enlarge preliminary 

 knowledge and so effectually extinguish 

 presumption as the hand-to-hand struggle 

 with some special problem in the depart- 

 ment of study in which the student is 

 already proficient. 



Apart from the professor and student, 

 the first effect of the inauguration of re- 



search work in our universities, if of the 

 genuine stamp, will be felt upon the teach- 

 ing profession of the country as a whole. 

 Assuming an educated and interested pub- 

 lic opinion, the premium so long placed 

 upon memorized knowledge will disappear, 

 and a change in the principle of selection 

 of teachers both in universities and second- 

 ary schools will result. The time will have 

 gone by, let us hope, when Huxley will be 

 passed over, as was the case fifty years 

 ago, when his candidature for a chair in 

 the Provincial University was unsuccessful. 

 We come finally to the effect of research 

 upon the national life. Canada, it is true, 

 is barely on the threshold of national exist- 

 ence, rich, however, in natural resources, 

 and richer still in the physical, moral and 

 intellectual qualities of its people. Its 

 future as a nation will depend largely upon 

 the aggregate of intellectual effort of its 

 population. In this sense truly knowledge 

 is power. The time has surely come when 

 we should cease to take all our knowledge 

 at second hand from abroad, and when we 

 should do some original thinking suitable 

 to our own circumstances. Under the term 

 original thinking I do not include merely 

 the researches of the laboratory, for the 

 spirit of research which inspires the chemist 

 or the philologist is one with that creative 

 faculty which moves the poet and the 

 novelist, a spirit which giiides all contem- 

 porary movements in literature, science and 

 art. For the development of this spirit 

 of originality the country must look pri- 

 marily to its universities, for on them de- 

 pends ultimately the whole intellectual life 

 of the people. The time is approaching, 

 if indeed it has not already arrived, when 

 the research univeraity must be regarded 

 as the only university, and the task is in- 

 cumbent upon those in authority of elab- 

 orating a university system not necessarily 

 in imitation of those of other lands, but 

 one which shall have proper regard to the 



