530 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVI. No. 405. 



not only the support but also the 

 good-will of the Carnegie trustees. Un- 

 ripe as the situation was, and unpre- 

 pared as the corporation was for the final 

 action, circumstances were so compelling 

 that we said no to our doubts and prefer- 

 ences and yes to the Carnegie offer. 



Although we have neither asked nor re- 

 ceived any guarantees that our freedom 

 of development shall remain unimpaired, 

 it is nevertheless certain that our 'yes' 

 implied trust in the fulfillment of this 

 condition. Few of us, perhaps, had 

 reflected upon the situation sufficiently 

 to realize that barriers might inter- 

 vene between trust and fulfilment which 

 could not have been anticipated on 

 either side at first. An organization once 

 inaugurated on a permanent endowment 

 is a thing of power. It holds even its 

 authors to a logical development. It be- 

 comes law to them and to aU who have ac- 

 cepted its authority. The organization of 

 the Carnegie Institution is still in ovo in 

 many respects, but as it gradually unfolds 

 it will create classifications and standards 

 to which departments and future develop- 

 ments will have to conform. It is conceiv- 

 able, even certain I think, that the nature 

 and scope of our plans for development 

 have not been fully grasped by the Carne- 

 gie trustees. Can we expect them to shape 

 their organization in such a way as to leave 

 us masters of our own development? If 

 they do not do this, what becomes of the 

 'trust' and the 'fulfilment'? 



We may have the fullest trust in the men 

 behind an organization, and the deepest 

 distrust of the influence which the organi- 

 zation will have on the development of our 

 plans. The organization which they create 

 will define their policy and attitude 

 towards all departments. It will control 

 them and its, and decide for us all what 

 departments shall receive support, and 

 where they shall be located. It requires 



no prophetic vision to predict that the part 

 will not assimilate the whole. 



Hitherto we have been independent. 

 That means that we have been a whole, with 

 the center of interest and the center of 

 authority at "Wood's Holl. No one could 

 dispute with us our right to say what de- 

 partments of biology should be represented 

 here. We could follow our own ideals to 

 the extent of ability and means. Al! di- 

 rections of development were open to us. 

 All avenues of support were ours to culti- 

 vate and make tributary to an unfettered 

 enterprise. It was on this independence 

 as a foundation that our interests in the 

 present and faith in the future rested. It 

 was the same foundation that sustained the 

 cooperative spirit and the national charac- 

 ter of the laboratory. It was our ground 

 of appeal in all emergencies, and the basis 

 of every claim to a wide financial support, 

 the first realizations of which were already 

 at our doors. 



The proposition to merge the laboratory 

 in another institution after a fifteen years' 

 struggle for independent existence, at a 

 moment when a strong financial svipport 

 was on the point of realization, could 

 hardly be expected to satisfy those who had 

 led the struggle, or those who had given 

 the cause unrequited aid and never-failing 

 sjanpathy. I venture to say that the per- 

 sonal sacrifices already made in the devel- 

 opment of the laboratory, the work it has 

 done in research and instruction, the ex- 

 ample it has given of the efficacy of cooper- 

 ation in science, the ideals it has upheld, 

 the national character of its organization, 

 the promising increase of its financial sup- 

 port, all entitle it to hold its independence 

 above any price. 



Our attitude towards the proposition 

 has been determined mainly by the desire 

 to secure an immediate and permanent sup- 

 port. While we all agree in the desire, we 

 certainly do not all agree that we can sur- 



