September 26, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



485 



rion. In this way if one line of investiga- 

 tion seems fruitless, the scholar can at 

 will be turned in another course. Thus the 

 Carnegie Institution may endow but not 

 control the course of science in San Fran- 

 cisco. There must be no limitations to the 

 ' akademische Preiheit. ' 



In my own laboratory I have always told 

 my students, ' everything will be bought for 

 you and all your breakage will be charged 

 against the laboratory, if you will only 

 give yoi;r time to the work. ' It is the time 

 of those capable of working which is the 

 laboratory's most valuable asset. Would 

 not scholarships, properly placed, liberate 

 for higher uses the maximum of capable 

 educated endeavor? Graham Lusk. 



University and Bellevue Hospital Medicai, 

 College, New Yokk. 



In response to the request for the views 

 of American men of science on the mission 

 of the Carnegie Institution, I would first of 

 aU express the hope that the trustees will 

 reject those propositions which would most 

 seriously menace the free development and 

 untrammeled activity of our various scien- 

 tific bodies and institutions of learning — 

 especially the establishment of a huge re- 

 serve fund, with the annual distribution of 

 its income among the 'deserving poor.' It 

 seems to me that, while there may be occa- 

 sional demands for large sums to equip ex- 

 ploring parties on behalf of some of the 

 descriptive sciences, the legitimate demands 

 for assistance in research in the exact sci- 

 ences ought not to be very large, in any one 

 year; in fact, I venture the assertion that 

 the existence of large sums to be devoted in 

 this way might lead to wastefulness in 

 methods, rather than to the development of 

 that resourcefulness which has been the 

 characteristic of the greatest investigators. 

 Favored beneficiaries might choose a field 

 of work from which others would be de- 

 barred by questions of cost, rather than 



strike out upon lines of greater originality 

 and importance. Again, it cannot be de- 

 nied that the establishment of a standard 

 of measurement with the utmost precision 

 is a work well worthy of national support : 

 but if the Carnegie Institution were to en- 

 courage, by means of its stipends, all our 

 most capable physicists to devote them- 

 selves to this class of work, advance in this 

 department of knowledge would be seri- 

 ously hampered. Is it a hardy prediction, 

 however, that the votes of a committee on 

 distribution would always favor such defi- 

 nite projects, as against a proposition to ex- 

 plore some vaguely defined problem of 

 physics or chemistry? 



I think, therefore, that the proportion of 

 the income to be devoted to the immediate 

 subvention of research ought to be small 

 at best; the aid would probably be more 

 efScient, if administered through existing 

 scientific societies, who would receive from 

 time to time such additions to their re- 

 search funds as would seem commensurate 

 with their previous success in promoting in- 

 vestigation. The existence of a central re- 

 viewing body would act as a wholesome re- 

 straint upon these smaller scientific bodies, 

 while the relative needs of investigators 

 could be better judged by a jury of experts 

 in their immediate field of work, than by 

 such a heterogeneous committee as would 

 be furnished by the trustees themselves. 



On the other hand, the suggestion that 

 the institution should play the part of a 

 private benefactor to our universities, by 

 adding to their endowment, building and 

 equipping laboratories, augmenting pro- 

 fessors' salaries or providing them with 

 private assistants, seems to me to savor of 

 paternalism and to open the way to serious 

 abuses, while at the same time it might 

 cause colleges to shape their course with 

 the sole view of pleasing the guardians of 

 the fund, for the time being. 



