OCTOBEE 17, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



605 



rooms for the transaction of its business. 

 These should be commodious, and adapted 

 to the needs of the officers, and the building 

 as a whole should have a dignity com- 

 mensurate with the rank of the Institution. 

 In the second place, I venture to say that 

 the Institution must be a unit. Neither its 

 founder nor its managers are likely to con- 

 sent to a policy which will result in such 

 subdivision of the income as will fritter it 

 away in many ineffectual driblets. There 

 is not enough money to endow research 

 along many lines. It is impossible to endow 

 scientific journals, support marine and 

 other laboratories, aid considerable num- 

 bers of worthy individuals, and conduct 

 original investigations along several lines. 

 Many people have been dazzled with the 

 size of the principal, and talk as if the ten 

 millions of dollars were available annually, 

 forgetting that it is only the income from 

 this sum which is available. This income, 

 after all, is not so very large. Already many 

 of the universities of this country greatly 

 exceed it. 



Evidently the work undertaken must be 

 definitely limited. It must be concentrated 

 upon certain phases of investigation and 

 instruction, and in this way it may hope 

 to aid the progress of human knowledge. 

 It seems to me that many of the suggestions 

 as to the policy to be pursued by the trus- 

 tees of the Carnegie Institution fail in 

 that they appear to be based on the supposi- 

 tion that it is to be over and above all 

 existing ones— a sort of supreme educa- 

 tional establishment of the university type. 

 Yet it can be no such thing. Had the fund 

 been ten times ten million dollars, the Car- 

 negie Institution might have overtopped 

 Harvard, Tale, Columbia, Chicago, Stan- 

 ford and all the rest of the universities of 

 the country. But it is idle to think of any 

 such thing with the income which the pres- 

 ent fund will yield. 



What, then, can be done? Clearly the 



trustees should avoid duplicating what is 

 already fully provided for in existing insti- 

 tutions. In the institution which they 

 establish they should contribute something 

 to education and educational thought. The 

 Smithsonian Institution taught us the 

 value of original research, and its 'Con- 

 tributions to Knowledge' will stand for all 

 time as evidence of the high standard set 

 by it. Johns Hopkins University has made 

 one contribution of the greatest importance 

 —namely, graduate study in the American 

 University. It may be said to have fixed 

 the standard of graduate work, and every 

 educational institution in this country has 

 been helped by its example. 



Now let the Carnegie Institution set for 

 itself one good piece of work, and concen- 

 trate upon that, rather than fritter away its 

 income in many little benefactions, all more 

 or less worthy and commendable, but 

 already under the care of some other insti- 

 tution. 



I suggest, therefore, that the trustees 

 found an 'Institute,' which shall carry the 

 work in some rather narrow department of 

 knowledge far beyond the boundaries pos- 

 sible to be reached by university depart- 

 ments. It is impossible to support a great 

 university by the income from this bequest, 

 but it is possible to maintain an 'institute' 

 devoted to some branch of investigation. 

 This might be a chemical institute, a phys- 

 ical institute, a zoological institute, a 

 botanical institute, a geological institute, a 

 physiological institute, a pathological insti- 

 tute, a psychological institute, etc. I cannot 

 decide which of these should be inaugura- 

 ted ; that may well be left to the trustees and 

 the president of the institution. Let me sup- 

 pose (since I am not a chemist, and there- 

 fore am not pleading for my own subject) 

 that the decision is to found the 'Carnegie 

 Chemical Institute ' ; we might then hope 

 to have in it the best facilities known for 

 the solution of chemical problems. Here 



