732 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVI. No. 410. 



It may not be unprofitable to consider 

 briefly wliat in accordance witli the policy 

 here suggested the attitude of the trustees 

 might be expected to be in a specific case. 



To help along that great class of scien- 

 tific publication which cannot be carried by 

 publishing houses on a strictlj'' commercial 

 basis would be one of the very important 

 aids that the institution might render sci- 

 ence. Supposing it were resolved by the 

 trustees to give a hand here, how shall this 

 be done would of necessity be a foremost 

 question. A number of courses would be 

 found open, all promising well. One would 

 be to build and operate a large publishing 

 house at some central point. This might 

 either establish its own journals and series 

 of monographs for the various departments 

 of learning; or it might act merely as a 

 printing house for reputable journals, etc., 

 now existing, but whose existence is a con- 

 stant struggle for life. 



A second general method would be to 

 grant sums of money, of course under care- 

 fully considered conditions, to existing pub- 

 lications, permitting the managers of these 

 to use the money as they best might for 

 broadening the scope and improving the 

 quality and efficiency of the publications 

 for which they are responsible. 



Either of these general plans of aid well 

 carried on would work great improvement 

 to the present highly unsatisfactory state 

 of scientific publication in this country. 

 If one of them were to be adopted, which 

 should it be? Were there absolute cer- 

 tainty that either would be best, that of 

 course would answer the question. Cer- 

 tainty, however, would not be possible. 

 On the whole the probabilities would rather 

 favor the first plan, it seems to me. Never- 

 theless since the second plan would be 

 almost as likely to succeed as the first, it 

 would be adopted as it could accord better 

 with the eut-and-trr policy. The first plan 

 would involve the permanent investment of 



a large sum of money in a plant, and this 

 plant, unusual as it would have to be in 

 much of its equipment, could not be readily 

 disposed of should it be found desirable to 

 do this. Furthermore, should series of pub- 

 lications be inaugurated bj^ the institution 

 itself it would be a serious matter to dis- 

 continue them. On the other hand, monej^ 

 grants of the sort contemplated in the sec- 

 ond plan could be easilj^ modified or dis- 

 continued at any time should they be found 

 by the trustees not to be producing satisfac- 

 tory results. More thau this the adoption 

 of the second plan would be favored by the 

 considerations that it would be supplement- 

 ing and not supplanting experience and 

 well-directed effort ' in the peripherj^ ' ; and 

 further that it is greatly to the advantage 

 of both libraries and users of libraries that 

 long-established journals shoi^ld be kept up 

 and improved rather than that new ones 

 shoiild be established. 



But the most fundamental difficulty con- 

 fronting the trustees will be that of so using 

 the funds and influence in their hands as 

 to make them contribute most to the pro- 

 motion of science, and of accomplishing 

 this without impairing 'activity in the 

 periphery,' to use Professor Miinsterberg 's 

 happj' phrase. 



It is easily conceivable that the ranking 

 of our nation among others on the basis of 

 scientific research might be advanced many 

 points, but that this might be accompanied 

 by an actual falling off in such peripheral 

 activity. Promotion at such a cost would, 

 I think, be regarded by most American 

 men of science as having been bought at a 

 price above its worth. Local initiative, 

 wherever found, rewarded solely according 

 to its merit is, after freedom, the most 

 sacred thing to American science as it is to 

 everj-thing else American. Centralization 

 of the sort that produces a weakening of 

 peripheral effort and responsibilitj'' is hate- 

 ful to lis; hateful not merely from a na- 



