530 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXIII. No. 588. 



the kings of thought 

 Who waged contention with their time's decay 

 And of the past are all that cannot pass away. 



Somewhat more than a generation since, 

 the cry arose for a training in the science 

 of nature equally thorough with that in the 

 sciences of man. The call was heeded be- 

 cause it was just. The machinery of scien- 

 tific education was set in motion, and for 

 nearly forty years the munificence of the 

 American world has lavished untold wealth 

 to improve it. Never was a movement bet- 

 ter adapted to the humor of the time and 

 to the designed end. The brand to be put 

 on its product was either a technical degree 

 or the newly invented bachelor of science. 

 The world of to-day is grateful to the men 

 who hold those proud and honest degrees. 

 To them the world is indebted for incal- 

 culable well-being, and Columbia is proud 

 of those she numbers among her children. 

 The liberal elements she inspired and in- 

 fused into their scientific training gave life 

 to inert things and related matter to mind. 



The spread of this education has been 

 so rapid and its work so fruitful that its 

 quality has been misjudged; unfortunate 

 comparisons have been instituted; and at 

 last the specious efliort is making, here and 

 elsewhere, to erase the name of science 

 from the label. The hue and cry has gone 

 up that so much work on any material is 

 as valuable as the same amount on any 

 other. If this were true, what a dull mo- 

 notony would life and nature be ! What 

 is really meant is, however, even worse; 

 because it is not merely untrue, but mis- 

 leading. It is the demagogue 's claptrap and 

 soft-sawder, that all work and all subjects 

 and, all men are equal and identical and 

 are to be designated by the same badge. 

 If this really indicates the state of our 

 minds, it is time for self-examination. The 

 evolution which has brought us to this is 

 strange indeed and the situation is so new 

 and anomalous that the relation of Colum- 



bia to her home, the duty of the University 

 to the City, the service which Gown may 

 render to Town, suddenly loom up, not 

 as vague, intangible matters, but as con- 

 crete realities of the first importance. 



Where and when was there an imperial 

 city so heterogeneous in population, with 

 the masses in absolute control through the 

 free ballot, with equal rights of every sort 

 guaranteed and enforced by the nation, 

 with ignorant and unskilled mechanics in 

 charge of the most delicate and complex 

 social machine hitherto devised— an organ- 

 ism which has been the evolution of cen- 

 turies, the frail heir of the past, the an- 

 cestor of ages yet to come? The reaction 

 of the university and its environment 

 under such conditions must be something 

 powerful for untold weal or woe to mil- 

 lions. Let us not be blind fatalists; the 

 battle is to the strong. Our example is 

 just as subtle and our responsibility just 

 as great, as is the moral force of this 

 anomalous aggregation of mankind upon 

 us. What we do in our own affairs may 

 change the course of empire ; and if we say 

 that white is black, that the potter is the 

 clay, that one sort of training is identical 

 with another, and so on through the whole 

 weary round of quibbles and evasions, we 

 stultify ourselves and lead our blind fol- 

 lowers into the ditch. Is it for this we 

 have renewed our youth? Are these great 

 throngs of students, is this great com- 

 munity, to learn such lessons, far more im- 

 portant than the learning of the schools? 

 Does the outward splendor of this acropolis 

 house faculties and professors who change 

 with the winds of doctrine that blow from 

 off the broad expanses of untilled social 

 alluvium around what ought to be our 

 mountain of sacrifice? Certainly not; our 

 opportunity to till these fertile fields is 

 almost too splendid, if we can seize it. 



Here is the Orient, projected into the 

 West; the earliest and the latest East, un- 



