June 3, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



843 



wrought by armies; their work does not 

 consist in conquering and subjugating 

 weaker nations; we do not see them, 

 glorified in painting and sculpture; we do 

 not hear their exploits extolled in song 

 and rhyme; no artists have had to record 

 their triumphant homecoming, greeted as 

 saviors and heroes while marching over 

 the mutilated corpses of their fallen ene- 

 mies; they do not use their power to sow 

 sorrow, death and misery, or to steal and 

 plunder or fill the museums of a city like 

 Paris with treasures of art taken by force 

 from weaker nations. No, the masses are 

 unaware of the immense power of the 

 scientist and the engineer because both of 

 them modestly play the role of "the serv- 

 ant in the house"; their unassuming life 

 is devoted not to slaughter, destruction or 

 coercion, but to the service of mankind. 

 They do not build useless pyramids ce- 

 mented with the sweat and blood of over- 

 abundant slaves, monuments to vain glori- 

 ous despots, witnesses to the small value 

 which was put in ancient times on human 

 life and on human labor. 



But the modern engineer, applying the 

 principles of science, raises buildings far 

 superior in size and conception than any 

 architecture of bygone ages can boast of; 

 edifices incomparably more comfortable, 

 more hygienic, more appropriate than 

 anything built before. He raises those 

 gigantic structures in as many days as it 

 took years to build a temple. 



In fact, after a few years, he is ready to 

 pull the same buildings down, to erect bet- 

 ter and bigger ones in order to suit ad- 

 vanced conditions, and nobody cares about 

 the name of the architect or the engineer, 

 nor does the builder care himself. 



And why should anybody care? The 

 dynamics of the age are producing changes 

 at such a rapid rate, that nowadays any 

 building, of whatever size it be, is begun 



with the feeling that before long It will 

 have to come down to give place to new 

 conditions. Erecting a twenty-story build- 

 ing in a city like New York is about like 

 putting up a temporary tent, which may 

 suit us for a while, but has to be taken 

 down whenever conditions, in the onward 

 march of civilization, demand it. Palaces 

 and other buildings which would have 

 made the pride of older nations are torn 

 down now after a career of less than 

 twenty years, to make room for the devel- 

 opment of our cities, to allow larger and 

 better adapted edifices to take their place, 

 which probably in a relatively short- time 

 will follow their predecessors and be torn 

 down in their turn, when our children be- 

 gin to realize that they want streets four 

 or five times wider than our now over- 

 crowded thoroughfares. 



The modern engineer and the scientist 

 realize that much more enduring monu- 

 ments than stone, brick or bronze will 

 mark the work of this period: they know 

 that the diffusion and application of exact 

 knowledge is shaping the destiny of fu- 

 ture generations and will afford more last- 

 ing evidence of their efforts than temples 

 or statues; they believe that their work 

 will not count merely for material better- 

 ment, but that improved material oppor- 

 tunities created by them will bring forth 

 better people, higher ideals, a better so- 

 ciety. 



To put it tersely, I dare say that the 

 last hundred years under the infiuence of 

 the modern engineer and the scientist have 

 done more for the betterment of the race 

 than all the art, all the civilizing efforts, 

 all the so-called classical literature, of past 

 ages, for which some respectable people 

 want us to have such an exaggerated rev- 

 erence. 



Consistent in their mission of true pow- 

 erful men and of servants of our race, the 



