852 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVI. No. 677 



versities should provide opportunities for 

 members of their own staffs to visit other 

 universities and for other teachers and 

 -workers to avail themselves of their own 

 local advantages. This is not luxury; it 

 is essential to progress and is demanded, 

 recognized and met by commercial, social 

 and political interests in their own lines of 

 work. 



A university professor should not be a 

 compendium of useless information, but the 

 recognized authority in his locality upon 

 the subject professed. He should have 

 ample expert and other assistance. 



If the department is railway engineering, 

 the staff should know more about it than 

 any railway interests in the land, so as to 

 be able to advise the state, or, when called 

 upon, the railways. The chemical depart- 

 ment should know more than any chemist 

 engaged in commercial pursuits and should 

 be encouraged to develop methods and 

 processes which will be of economic utility 

 to the state. The geologist and botanist 

 should be of great assistance in the practical 

 working out of state interests, pai-ticularly 

 in the newer communities. The economists 

 should not be theorists alone, but should be 

 used to the utmost in solving economic 

 questions relating to taxation, banking and 

 business in general. The medical depart- 

 ment in each of its specialties should be 

 represented by men preeminently fitted 

 and trained and practical in their tem- 

 peraments. Law departments should be 

 manned by staffs which have the respect 

 'of the bench, bar and general public. 



It is apparent that the professor of to- 

 day must be keen, alert and thoroughly 

 trained and can only be brought and kept 

 up to date by the most strenuous exertion 

 on his own part and liberal opportunity on 

 the part of the university with which he 

 is connected. He must know his own 

 locality thoroughly in order to know how 

 other methods employed in other countries 



may be applied with advantage to the local 

 problems. He must know facts in books 

 and out of them. He must be able to draw 

 correct conclusions. He must teach and he 

 must have books, and other tools, facili- 

 ties and assistance. If he is to be an au- 

 thority on what he professes he must spe- 

 cialize, and to-day we do not have and can- 

 not expect to have a professor of more than 

 one branch of knowledge, although it is not 

 long since a so-called college of the far west 

 advertised in its calendar a "professor of 

 Greek and dancing." 



Conditions which govern humanity may 

 be improved in thousands of different ways, 

 and it should be the aim of the state, 

 through its university, to improve the con- 

 dition of its citizens in every way. The 

 university should lead, not follow. The 

 state should afford a moderate degree of 

 education to every one of its citizens 

 through funds derived from the pockets of 

 all. Whether university training should 

 be given gratuitously to all citizens of the 

 state who have made themselves eligible by 

 a previous course of study is very ques- 

 tionable since in the absence of proper 

 initiative, good judgment and ability to 

 work hard, individuals may be educated 

 out of their sphere, that is, given a knowl- 

 edge of more facts and methods than they 

 find themselves mentally able to digest and 

 assimilate or to utilize in the ordinary 

 every-day practical affairs of life. 



All educational, which must mean re- 

 search, institutions will probably be run at 

 a loss so far as returns in immediate ap- 

 plicability to the problems of life are con- 

 cerned. It is therefore necessary for the 

 state or some other force to endow such in- 

 stitutions adequately so as to meet the de- 

 ficit which results from insufficient pay- 

 ment by those who are taking advantage of 

 opportunities afforded, but whose later 

 labors may return to the state many times 

 over the initial cost. It is very question- 



