June 3, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



845 



a while the march of progress, because 

 there were so very few scientists and so 

 very few books to burn. But nowadays it 

 would require more than all the combined 

 blast furnaces of Pittsburgh to keep up 

 this process of oxidation. 



It helps a country like Russia very little 

 to have some highly developed men, some 

 great scientists, great philosophers, as long 

 as the multitude of the rural population 

 remain in ignorance and lowness; as long 

 as so many people are prevented by un- 

 satisfactory material conditions to profit 

 by the influence of their better fellow men. 



In a self-respecting community the bene- 

 fits of modern conditions and opportuni- 

 ties for advancement are open for every- 

 body and privileges of birth and class are 

 now considered an anachronism, if not a 

 crime, against the human race. Yet few 

 men stop to compare the conditions of 

 modern life with those of the good olden 

 times. An average man who thinks him- 

 self underpaid and imagines he is living at 

 a very modest pace, does not realize that 

 when he is traveling in a modem railroad 

 train he enjoys comforts and advantages 

 never dreamt of by the richest or most 

 powerful men, princes or kings, of scarcely 

 a century ago; he forgets that his life is 

 surer, that his health is better taken care 

 of, than that of any potentate of former 

 times ; that the nation respects more perma- 

 nently his rights as a citizen, than was the 

 case of prime ministers of one or two hun- 

 dred years ago; that his sons and daugh- 

 ters have better and surer opportunities of 

 education and intellectual advancement, 

 than the children of kings of past cen- 

 turies; that there is no beautiful thought 

 in this world, no knowledge, which is not 

 accessible to him and everybody who can 

 read. 



Man only considers a thing a luxury as 

 long as his fellow men can not get it, never 



mind whether it be a bit of glass or a dia- 

 mond, a bicycle or an automobile; com- 

 modities of modern life cease to be con- 

 sidered as luxuries as soon as they become 

 easily accessible to everybody. 



Neither should we be too much disap- 

 pointed in meeting so many people who 

 seem to be oblivious to our improved con- 

 ditions, as compared with those of former 

 times. Society has been pushed ahead, 

 against the will of the masses, by a few ac- 

 tive, daring, restless men who forced the 

 othere to follow; just like a herd of un- 

 thinking sheep is unwillingly driven for- 

 ward by the shepherd and his dogs. 

 Many people among whom we live have 

 truly been prodded into progress; they 

 may properly be called remnants of bygone 

 times, symptoms of mental atavism of the 

 race; they do not properly fit in our age; 

 they have passively drifted along on the 

 advancing stream of centuries to be car- 

 ried beyond where they properly belong, 

 and now they constitute the ballast which 

 impedes the dynamics of our modern 

 generation. 



It has been asserted so often by respect- 

 able people that science and industry cater 

 only to our material welfare, and have 

 little in common with culture,, refinement 

 or moral development; therefore I feel 

 compelled to put special emphasis on this 

 side of the question and to insist on the 

 enormity of this error; on the contrary, 

 the development of our industries, of our 

 material prosperity, as well as the study 

 and application of science, are the surest 

 and most immediate forerunners of higher 

 civic ideals, of an improved society, of a 

 better race. 



A clean, well nourished and well housed 

 individual who can enjoy the comforts 

 and advantages of modern surroundings, 

 and leads an active, intelligent, productive, 

 self-supporting and self-respecting life, 



