736 



SCIENCE. 



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



tion in this country instead of a blessing.' 

 "While it may seem overbold to question 

 the conclusions of one who has attained 

 an inside view of the problems of the 

 American university, I cannot but feel that 

 the coming generation, of the scientific in- 

 vestigators at least, would be cheered by 

 the pi-ospect of a great Carnegie institution 

 of research. 



If, on the other hand, the fund is to be 

 bestowed lapon various objects, there can be 

 no doubt, from the student's point of view, 

 as to what directions the expenditure 

 should take in the main. The assistance of 

 publication is, I believe, one of the defi- 

 nitely marked out avenues for the distribu- 

 tion of the fund. I believe that such assist- 

 ance should be accorded not only to those 

 who conduct research by the aid of the 

 fund, but also to those who conduct inde- 

 pendent investigations. The publication 

 of the doctorate thesis seems unnecessarily 

 difficult. It seems odd, at first thought, 

 that the results of two or three years of 

 research not only do not command any 

 financial return, but are actually, as pub- 

 lished, sources of expense to the author. If 

 some journal ^^ndertakes to publish the 

 research, the writer has often to pay extra 

 charges of various sorts— excess for proof 

 corrections, excess for tables, excess for fine 

 print, excess for over-length — and the off- 

 prints and their distribution add to his in- 

 debtedness to the publisher. Even so, I^am 

 informed that certain scientific journals 

 are actually conducted at a financial loss, 

 and hence at the personal expense of the 

 editors, unless subsidized by some univer- 

 sity. Here, then, are two matters which 

 are not as they should be, and might well 

 concern the Carnegie fund. Could not 

 these difficulties be met in two ways: (1) 

 By the restriction of the number of exist- 

 ing scientific journals, especially by amal- 

 gamating the numerous scattered 'studies' 

 of various universities with the leading 



journals, and (2) by the establishment of 

 a Carnegie Bureau of Printing and En- 

 graving where these standard journals 

 should be printed at an expense no greater 

 than that of the European journals? The 

 cost of publishing could thus be removed 

 from the investigator and assumed by the 

 fund, while the journal, if not then self- 

 supporting, coiild be aided, possibly, by 

 judicious subsidizing. 



I believe, further, that much good would 

 come if these journals, thus amalgamated 

 and thus placed upon a satisfactory finan- 

 cial basis, were supplemented by the pub- 

 lication, for each science, of a 'Carnegie 

 year-book,' giving a full account of the 

 work of the various laboratories (resumes 

 of published articles, description of new 

 apparatus, etc.). This work might profit- 

 ably, perhaps, include some record of work 

 abroad. Finally, the journals and year- 

 books might be supplemented further by 

 a series of authoritative monographs, pub- 

 lished under the auspices of the fund, upon 

 topics within each science. There seems 

 to be a place now for comprehensive his- 

 torical resumes as complete, even if not at 

 all original, as Helmholtz's 'Handbuch der 

 physiologischen Optik.' 



Another obvious avenue of disbursement 

 is the establishment of fellowships and 

 scholarships for graduate students in the 

 universities. If the universities M'ould 

 agree to remit the tuition of all Carnegie 

 fellows and scholars, five hvindred and 

 three hundred dollars respectively would 

 give ample provision for the bodily wants 

 of the holders. The scholars might be re- 

 garded as presumptive fellows, to be pro- 

 moted in accordance with the recommenda- 

 tion of their university instructors. Both 

 scholars and fellows might be appointed 

 simply as Carnegie fellows and Carnegie 

 scholars, and allowed to select the univer- 

 sity at which they would conduct their 

 studies. 



