Januaey 11, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



51 



over this association of scientific men and 

 women. 



We shall now have the pleasure of listen- 

 ing to words of welcome from the president 

 of Columbia University, Dr. Bvitler. 



President Butler : Mr. President, ladies 

 and gentlemen: It is a pleasure, and no 

 small satisfaction, speaking on behalf of 

 my colleagues in the university— trustees, 

 faculties, alumni and students — to offer you 

 a cordial and hearty welcome to our home. 

 Nowhere in America, perhaps, could you 

 by any possibility receive a warmer or more 

 sympathetic welcome than here. We are 

 so fortunate as to count among our uni- 

 versity membership a very considerable 

 proportion of the membership of your asso- 

 ciation, and we look to them to lead and 

 to guide and organize our university poli- 

 cies and opinions in the field of the sciences 

 of nature and of man. Whatever facilities 

 we may have for making you comfortable 

 and happy are wholly and entirely at your 

 service, and our part will be played to our 

 own satisfaction if, when the hour of ad- 

 journment comes, you shall feel that noth- 

 ing has been left undone that thought or 

 care could do to provide in every way for 

 the success of this gathering and for this 

 most important meeting. 



I might perhaps stop here, because, after 

 all, there is not much to be gained by 

 repeating a formal invitation that is once 

 given with sincerity and heartiness; but I 

 can not resist the opportunity to say just a 

 word in addition to my word of welcome. 

 I am one of those who now for nearly thirty 

 years has observed at first hand the slow, 

 and then the rapid, advance of the sciences 

 to their present place in the school and 

 college programs of this country. It has 

 been my fortune to listen to and sometimes 

 to participate in the discussions and debates 

 which have accompanied that advance. So 

 far as I now recollect, every vote that I 

 have had to give has been given in its favor. 



But now at the end of this period I can not 

 help feeling, as I observe from reading the 

 literature of the subject that the same feel- 

 ing is shown in England, in France and in 

 Germany, that we have not yet succeeded in 

 so organizing the sciences as instruments 

 of general education as to fulfil the high 

 expectations which some of us formed for 

 them nearly a quarter of a century ago. 



This is a subject which I respectfully 

 commend to the study of this most repre- 

 sentative and competent body. What is it 

 that remains to be done, and what should 

 we here do, so to correlate and organize and 

 present the subject matter and the methods 

 of the sciences as to increase their effective- 

 ness as educational instruments? 



I say with great frankness that if we did 

 not know that we are going through what is 

 doubtless a period of transition, the move- 

 ment in which we have all been partici- 

 pating has cost us something and gained 

 not much. But we are going through a 

 period of transition. Perhaps we are ex- 

 pecting too much and too soon, but my pur- 

 pose in saying what I now say is to bring 

 to your attention the fact that to many of 

 us the consideration of the educational 

 effectiveness of the sciences touches the 

 whole field of human interest, of human 

 knowledge and of human activity. 



There can be little doubt that the sciences 

 of nature and of man, properly organized 

 and presented as educational instruments, 

 are destined to be classified as true humani- 

 ties. I can not help feeling that in addition 

 to their power to instruct and inform they 

 have a power to refine, to uplift and to 

 guide ; but I am quite confident that as yet 

 we are very far short of having so organ- 

 ized this material as to attain these ends. 



I hope very much that the next decade 

 may see intensive study of this aspect of 

 these scientific problems and of scientific 

 work; and that out of it all may come, not 

 a larger place in the educational program 



