April 22, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



645 



the University of Michigan, was instruct- 

 ing a class in qualitative analysis, in a 

 small room of the medical building, now 

 utilized as a preparation room for lectures. 

 A building exclusively for the teaching of 

 chemistry was finished at a cost of $6,000, 

 including the equipment, and was in use 

 in 1856, or a year before Boylston Hall 

 was opened at Harvard. In one of his re- 

 ports, written as this laboratory was near- 

 ing completion, President Tappan says that 

 it 'will unquestionably be unsurpassed by 

 anything of the kind in our country.' 

 Every few years the demands for more 

 space became so urgent and so obvious that 

 an ell was added, or a cellar was excavated, 

 until, in that huge labyrinth, whose very 

 floors are worn through by constant use, 

 as it stands to-day, one may study the de- 

 velopment of laboratories, as the geologist 

 studies the development of the earth, by 

 an inspection of the strata. It is worthy 

 of remark that we have the promise of our 

 board of regents that the next large build- 

 ing which they undertake shall be a new 

 chemical laboratory. 



Turning now from this review of by-gone 

 times to the present, we may well marvel 

 that such a complete revolution of condi- 

 tions could occur in fifty years. It would 

 be harder to find a university without mod- 

 erately good laboratories to-day than it was 

 to find one with them in 1850. And they 

 are increasing in numbers and size, through 

 the munificence of individuals and of legis- 

 latures and governments, at a surprising 

 rate. These modern laboratories need no 

 description, for we have the actual model 

 here before us. 



At no other period in the history of the 

 world has so much money been available 

 for the teaching and the advancement of 

 science. The great endowments and be- 

 quests of recent years, as represented by 

 the Carnegie Institution, Leland Stanford 

 University and the University of Chicago, 



to mention only three, are as well known 

 to you as to me. I had the curiosity to 

 look through Science, for the year 1903, 

 and to add together all the sums recorded 

 there as actually given during that year to 

 colleges and universities, excluding items 

 that might be simply newspaper rumors. 

 It was surprising to find that they footed 

 up to $15,241,533. Add to this Carnegie's 

 ten millions to the Scottish universities, 

 and the McKay fortune, variously esti- 

 mated at from four to twenty millions, 

 which is to go to Harvard eventually, and 

 the total is truly princely. 



Such figures lead very naturally to the 

 question: Have the universities deserved 

 such sums, from the point of view of what 

 they have accomplished in the past, and 

 can they possibly require more than they 

 now have? Any one who has had to do 

 with a university can answer in the affirma- 

 tive to each of these questions without 

 hesitation and without qualification. It is 

 my intention to prove that all the money 

 ever given to the cause of education and 

 science does not equal a fraction of one 

 per cent, of the returns made by them, 

 and at the same time to prove that no bet- 

 ter, nor more surely profitable investment 

 for money is to be found, than in increasing 

 these endowments and bequests many fold. 

 In the first place, we should realize that 

 most of these gifts are principal sums, and 

 the interest only is available, which puts a 

 different aspect on the question at once. 

 Furthermore, we must also realize that 

 most of the bequests are for specific pur- 

 poses, and very generally are so hampered 

 with restrictions that they can not be ap- 

 plied where they will do the most good. 

 An illustration of the way in which such 

 conditions may work out in the course of 

 time is the bequest of a well-meaning 

 clergyman made more than a century 

 ago to Harvard, the interest of which was 

 to support a preacher among the Indians. 



