Febeuabt 23, 1906.] 



SCIENCE. 



283 



their triumph, is permitted to make a few 

 remarks intended to hold down to earth 

 those who are leading the procession. 



It is a good custom, but wearing on the 

 slave. One experience generally does for 

 him. Yet, his privilege implies an oblig-a- 

 tion and in pursuance of this obligation, 

 which our usage thus imposes, I have 

 chosen for my theme ' Some Aspects of the 

 Endowment of Research.' 



The questions which this topic conjures 

 into life have lately pressed themselves 

 on my attention, and it appears that the 

 only way to put them decently at rest is 

 to sentence them to death— in an address 

 —and then allow them to be buried— in 

 the records of our learned society. 



The events which have brought the en- 

 dowment of research into special notice 

 during the last decade are known to all. 

 As examples of the thing I have in mind, 

 let me cite the Carnegie Institution, the 

 Eockefeller Institute and the Nobel prizes. 



Such notable foundations have claimed 

 our attention because they were recent, 

 involved gTeat sums of money and closely 

 touched our interests as working nat- 

 uralists. 



But we should view them in their his- 

 torical relation in order to appreciate their 

 broader significance, and when this is done 

 it will be plain, I think, that their novelty 

 depends most largely on the fact that in a 

 measure they can be devoted to the aid of 

 biological investigation. 



Even in our own young country such 

 foundations are by no means new. Our 

 academies and learned societies have long 

 had funds for the encouragement of in- 

 vestigation. To be sure, these have been 

 mainly applied to the domain of the phys- 

 ical sciences — a fact which needs no ex- 

 planation when we recall that the physical 

 sciences were the iirst to be pushed for- 

 ward by the wave of modem interest. 



Nevertheless, such foundations as the 



Smithsonian Institution and the Elizabeth 

 Thompson Fund have for many years con- 

 tributed to biological progress. Inade- 

 quate as these provisions are to meet what 

 we may courteously call the reasonable 

 wants of workers in this field, they serve 

 to show that, here and there, an individual 

 has recognized the need of larger re- 

 sources for scientific work, and has sought 

 to supply them. "When we look across the 

 water, we find provisions of this sort to 

 be an old story to the older world. 



Throughout Great Britain and the conti- 

 nent, academies and societies for genera- 

 tions have had at their disposal no incon- 

 siderable sums of money— indeed, in 

 many instances, far greater sums than we 

 are wont to imagine. 



The expenditure of these moneys has 

 been mainly for work outside the natural 

 sciences, but even within this latter group 

 biological work has had the lesser share. 

 This is said in no spirit of complaint, but 

 merely to suggest why this condition of 

 affairs in the scientific world at large is so 

 rarely forced on our attention. 



But there are still other ways in which 

 the expenses of scientific work have been 

 defrayed. States and nations, as well as 

 individuals, have been contributors. The 

 former have expended really great sums on 

 the various branches of science in the con- 

 duet of surveys, commissions, bureaus, ob- 

 servatories and expeditions. The move- 

 ment has been coextensive with the civilized 

 world, and the outlay much greater than 

 that for the corresponding scientific work 

 in institutions of higher learning. On this 

 topic it is not necessary to enlarge, but I 

 will only add that the work accomplished 

 has been enormous and without state aid 

 would have been well-nigh impossible. 



It is plain, however, that we should dis- 

 tinguish in a general way between govern- 

 mental science work supported from the 

 public funds and the other kinds, repre- 



