Jantjakt 11, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



57 



all arguments thereon, the president has 

 solicited much of this correspondence and 

 many of these interviews. He has received 

 a wealth of highly esteemed advice and sug- 

 gestion along with much more that must be 

 characterized either as impracticable of 

 application or as fraught with grave 

 danger if applied. 



A considerable portion of this advice 

 and suggestion would make instructive 

 reading if printed, although they are in 

 large degree conflicting and need, obvi- 

 ously enough, here and there, correction 

 for personal equation; but, aside from 

 greater concentration on matters of detail, 

 they do not differ essentially in the aggre- 

 gate from the advice and suggestion given 

 by members of the advisory committees 

 whose reports are printed in the earlier 

 year books of the institution. Hence it 

 does not seem worth while to add to the 

 bulk of printed discussion along this line, 

 even in the cases of correspondence whose 

 authors would doubtless approve publica- 

 tion of their views. The president desires 

 here, however, to express his warm appre- 

 ciation of the counsel on this question given 

 him confidentially by many colleagues in 

 the academic and scientific world. Whether 

 this counsel has been pro or con as regards 

 his own views an effort has been made to 

 weigh it fairly. 



In the meantime there have been some 

 opportunities for reflection on the various 

 aspects of the question, while the institu- 

 tion is accumulating experience which, 

 though not as yet conclusive in its bearings, 

 furnishes important indications of the lines 

 along which development may be expected 

 to be effective or ineffective. It seems de- 

 sirable, therefore, to state here some of the 

 provisional conclusions to which observa- 

 tion, experience and reflection have forced 

 me, not without opposition, in some cases, 

 to preconceived notions. 



Categorically these conclusions are the 

 following : 



First, that the institution may not ad- 

 vantageously enter the fields now occupied 

 by colleges and universities. It should be 

 no part of the function of the institution 

 to endow scholarships and fellowships for 

 indigent students, nor to supply helpers, 

 assistants, apparatus, libraries, museum 

 collections, etc., for purely educational 

 work, nor to supplement meager salaries 

 of college and university professors whose 

 work is primarily educational. This con- 

 clusion and the specifications enumerated 

 seem so axiomatic that their statement 

 would be quite superfluous here if the insti- 

 tion were not daily importuned for aid in 

 one or more of these and many similar 

 ways. Some eminent minds maintain, in- 

 deed, that since the object of the institu- 

 tion is, in the last analysis at any rate, 

 educational, these numerous ways of pro- 

 moting education should not be overlooked, 

 for the sphere of effective influence of the 

 institution, it is argued, may be thus widely 

 extended. The experience of the institu- 

 tion thus far, however, appears to be in 

 direct opposition to this view. We are 

 learning how the giving of aid by one insti- 

 tution to another, even indirectly, tends to 

 sap the independence and to diminish the 

 available income of both. Moreover, we 

 encounter by this method the endless diffi- 

 culties arising from diverse interests and 

 divided responsibilities, along with the in- 

 evitable bitterness of disappointment from 

 those who feel that the distribution of 

 funds has not been equitable amongst the 

 fields of research or amongst the institu- 

 tions supplying the investigators. 



Secondly, that the institution may not 

 advantageously seek to scatter its resources 

 simultaneously over all available fields of 

 research. It should rather choose a limited 

 number of fields of activity at any epoch 

 and concentrate its energies on these until 



