October 17, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



G09 



perimentally tested on a gigantic scale by 

 the Nobel bequest, and the Carnegie Insti- 

 tution can well afford to await the results. 

 I take it the chief reward of the genuine 

 investigator consists in the accomplishment 

 of the work itself, in the moments of ex- 

 hilaration when truth new to the race first 

 dawns upon him, in the approbation of his 

 peers. If he does not do the best there is 

 in him for these, he will not do it for the 

 trappings which a salary larger than need- 

 ful for comfortable living will enable him 

 to buy. 



The wisdom of devoting the most of the 

 funds of the Carnegie Institution to the 

 selection and cultivation of individual in- 

 vestigators seems to me the more important 

 in view of the fact that Americans appear 

 to be weak in the investigating instinct, or 

 temperament. The genius of the American 

 people is rather for affairs than for that 

 patient persistent microscopic application 

 which is the soul of research. It is all the 

 more needful, then, to seek out and culti- 

 vate such investigating talent as there may 

 be. To suppose that it is money alone that 

 is now needed to give this country the 

 primacy in research is to share the attitude 

 of the man who, become suddenly rich, said 

 to his son, 'My son, we are now very rich 

 and you can realize your ambition to be- 

 came an author; yes, we are rich enough 

 so that if you wish you can become a great 

 author.' It will call for much from the 

 Carnegie Institution besides its great in- 

 come to make this country great in pro- 

 found scientific research. 



I think, therefore, that the highest use- 

 fulness of the Carnegie Institution will lie 

 in acting as a special providence to men, 

 institutions and events, concerned in the 

 advancement of human knowledge. As 

 such it must be content with the rewards of 

 the spirit, and willing to forego structures 

 and furnishings visible to the physical eye, 

 which in this case should be so much the 



easier for the reason that the munificent 

 founder of the Institution is already 

 amply honored in the many sightly and 

 serviceable structures with which the land 

 so happily abounds. W. P. Ganong. 



Smith College, 

 noethampton, mass. 



I SUPPOSE that every scientific man, who 

 has at any time been hampered in his work 

 by lack of funds— as which of us has not ?— 

 allowed himself, when he heard of Mr. Car- 

 negie 's millions, to dream of what could be 

 done, with unlimited money, for his own 

 science. My own thoughts turned at once 

 to the building and equipment of adequate 

 laboratories of experimental psychology. 

 For we psychologists have no laboratories 

 that can at all compare with those of phys- 

 ics or chemistry or biology, or that at all 

 worthily represent the range and complex- 

 ity of our science. The student of physics, 

 at any one of the larger institutions, is im- 

 pressed as he enters the laboratory with the 

 dignity and importance of the work before 

 him; physics is largely housed and richly 

 equipped. It is very different with psy- 

 chology. An old building that has outlived 

 its original usefulness, a private house that 

 the university does not need, a set of rooms 

 in the corner of some building devoted to 

 miscellaneous purposes — these are our lab- 

 oratories. No musemn rooms for the dis- 

 play of historical instruments ; no pri- 

 vate laboratories for the instructing staff; 

 no proper separation of teaching and inves- 

 tigation. What I should most of all like to 

 see, then, is a special laboratory biiilding, 

 specially designed for psychological ends, 

 adequately officered, and ample enough to 

 accommodate all the many branches of psy- 

 chological work. It would not much mat- 

 ter where the building Avas placed, provid- 

 ed that it existed, and were reasonably ac- 

 cessible. Once a model was made, improve- 

 ment would follow all round. 



