Febeuart 23, 1906.] 



SCIENCE. 



285 



that he should first draw a map of the 

 unknown region, or engage to see that those 

 who sent him are kept regularly informed. 

 His energies and time belong to other work. 



In many fields the hard, laborious initial 

 work has been so largely done that the sec- 

 ond phase of interest is the one before us 

 and we must etist about for the best and 

 surest way to meet the problems which are 

 thus presented. If these have had their 

 best solution thus far in the universities, 

 let us look that way for our enlightenment. 



It is safe to assume that this company 

 knows the drawbacks— some of them at 

 least — which inhere in university life, but 

 with your consent that topic maj' be put 

 aside. On the other hand, the advantages 

 should be briefly stated. They are these— 

 immediate association with productive col- 

 leagues ; the vitalizing contact of the stream 

 of youth ; no responsibility save to the high 

 court of one's fellow workers; no assign- 

 ments or programs imposed from without, 

 but full liberty to follow where the research 

 leads— time not being 'of the essence of the 

 contract. ' 



These are conditions which make for 

 intellectual growth and accomplishment; 

 these are the conditions which in the uni- 

 versity surround the research worker, and 

 these are the conditions which the effective 

 endowment of research should struggle to 

 preserve. 



If such views are sound, then isolation— 

 the kind that withdraws a worker from his 

 colleagues and the stream of youth— is to 

 be looked on with suspicion. There may be 

 moments when the investigator, finding his 

 days broken into little bits and his energies 

 dissipated by irrelevant and trivial affairs, 

 is fascinated by an opportunity which hints 

 at isolation and promises relief, forgetting 

 that, if to escape the ills he also sacrifices 

 the advantages of his university surround- 

 ings, he has put himself in a position where 



few men hold their own. Lady Dilke de- 

 scribes it thus : 



The man who for any cause utterly forsakes 

 the paths of his fellow-men is by them given up, 

 as lost, and becomes as one of no account — ^being 

 reckoned a dreamer of idle dreams. 



Therefore let him beware who hears that call — 

 be it ever so alluring — which bids a man separate 

 himself from, his company, lest in the following 

 after its strange music he should become a cast- 



But among the other features of the 

 academic world which endowment should 

 preserve, and perhaps the most important, 

 is freedom from the limitations which nat- 

 urally follow from assignment. The mat- 

 ter here is passing delicate. 



It so happens that even investigators 

 have failings— more or less human— and 

 these must be considered. If it pleases us 

 to imagine that our prototypes in the by- 

 gone days were the voyagers and adven- 

 turers of the Renaissance, let us take a 

 sample of their point of view. Columbus, 

 just anchored off the western isles, writes 

 to his royal patron on the morning of that 

 first Sunday that 'he and those with him 

 have come thither to bring the light to 

 them that sit in darkness and slake the 

 thirst for gold which all men feel. ' To-day 

 we do not say it so naively, but yet we 

 know how Columbus felt. It is this un- 

 fortunate combination of two powerful 

 desires in the investigator's heart which 

 causes trouble. How can such complex 

 beings be made to bend all their energies 

 to 'bringing light,' and at the same time 

 be induced to properly neglect their ' thirst. ' 

 This is the problem which confronts those 

 who are responsible for the wise manage- 

 ment of research funds. There have been 

 times when it was felt that assignments and 

 limitations calling, as it were, for so much 

 light per hour would accomplish the result. 

 But any such device is contrary to the very 

 spirit of research. What then, you ask? 



