650 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIX. No. 486. 



longer, and more expensive, but the invest- 

 ment is still returned with high interest. 

 The problems to be met have been growing 

 more difficult, but they have been met, and 

 successfully solved, by those with labora- 

 tory training, or by those who have profited 

 by the knowledge of the facts dug out in 

 the laboratory. More problems, and more 

 difficult ones, will arise, and they in their 

 turn will be solved, if laboratories and 

 their equipments are maintained at their 

 highest degree of efficiency by liberal en- 

 dowments and grants. But it would be as 

 absurd to expect our men of science to cope 

 with the complex questions of the present 

 and the immediate future with antiquated 

 utensils, as it would be to send our sailors 

 off in the wooden ships of the war of 1812 

 to grapple with the Japanese navy. 



The idea that a given sum will build and 

 equip a laboratory, and that once set going 

 it will run itself and require nothing more 

 than occasional small sums to replace loss 

 by breakage and the like is a pernicious 

 fallacy. New methods, requiring new or 

 improved instruments, appear each year, 

 and these instruments must be had, if there 

 is to be any pushing forward into the un- 

 known in the branch to which they are 

 adapted. It is a noteworthy fact that, 

 crude as the materials of the early experi- 

 menters were, they were the best for their 

 purpose to be had in the world of that time. 

 Faraday insulated his wires with bits of 

 string and old calico, but no one had better 

 insulated wire. Davy obtained sodium and 

 potassium by electrolysis, but he had the 

 biggest and best galvanic battery in exist- 

 ence at the time. It would have been prac- 

 tically impossible to discover Hertzian 

 waves, or Rontgen rays, or wireless tele- 

 graphy, without the best of induction coils. 

 And so we might continue ad infinitum. 

 It is clearly impossible for one laboratory 

 to have the best of everything, but it is 

 equally clear that each laboratory should 



have a fairly representative equipment on 

 all general lines, primarily for teaching 

 purposes, and should have an outfit equal 

 to the very best for one or two topics. 

 These topics should be different in different 

 places, and may often be adapted to special 

 localities; they should be chosen by the 

 members of the instructing staff according 

 to their individual aptitudes and interests. 



Our, laboratories have overwhelmingly 

 justified their cost by their past history, 

 and are justified in making greater de- 

 mands than ever, by the importance of the 

 functions which they fulfil. 



It is to be hoped that philanthropists 

 will be still more liberal than they have 

 been, and that the people will tax them- 

 selves more than they ever have, through 

 their legislatures, to give to all schools, 

 colleges and universities. Such money is 

 the fire insurance and the life insurance 

 of society as a whole, guaranteeing the 

 maintenance of law and order, and the 

 ability of the next generation to support 

 the burden of advancing civilization, when 

 its turn comes. 



S. Lawrence Bigelow. 



University op Michigan. 



IS THE COURSE FOB COLLEGE ENTRANCE 



REQUIREMENTS BEST FOR THOSE 



WHO GO NO FURTHER?* 



The question is an old . one. Is there 

 conflict or harmony of interests between 

 secondary and higher education? Should 

 the high-school student be laying founda- 

 tions for future study, or should he be do- 

 ing work that is complete in itself, so far 

 as it goes ; or may he not secure a maximum 

 of present utility while laying satisfactory 

 foundations for future studies? I should 

 prefer to discuss the question the other 



* Address delivered before the Biological Sec- 

 tion of the Central Association of Science and 

 Mathematics Teachers in Chicago. General sub- 

 ject of the meeting : ' Essentials of a High-school 

 Course in Biology.' 



