642 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXV. No. 643 



enticing a topic, the circumstances of our 

 meeting compel a word of tribute to the 

 part played by the University of Wiscon- 

 sin in the upward movement. Fifty 

 years ago the state universities were almost 

 wholly teaching institutions, colleges rather 

 than universities, institutions influenced 

 by rather than influencing the standards 

 of the subordinate educational grades. 

 Thirty years ago the foresight of Presi- 

 dent Gilman made the Johns Hopkins Uni- 

 versity an exponent of the university ideal, 

 before then but imperfectly realized, but 

 for which the times were ripe, and in the 

 acceptance of this ideal the University of 

 Wisconsin was no laggard. In 1887 she 

 gave earnest of her ideals in appointing to 

 the presidency Professor Chamberlin, 

 active then as now in the advocacy of in- 

 vestigation as a function of the university 

 an-d whose words, spoken on the occasion 

 of the jubilee of this university, might 

 appropriately be writ large over the portals 

 of all our state universities— "Research 

 in every reahn of a people's legitimate in- 

 terests is an appropriate function of the 

 people's organized self, the state, and of 

 the people's organized instrument of re- 

 search, the state university." The ap- 

 pointment to the presidency, in 1892, of 

 Charles Kendall Adams was a pledge that 

 the movement towards the higher ideals 

 should not be retarded, and under his 

 administration and that of Professor Birge 

 the growth of the university along uni- 

 versity lines is evidenced by the increase 

 in the number of graduate students from 

 3 in 1887 to 119 in 1903. 



History repeats itself. The university 

 movement began in Wisconsin under the 

 presidency of an active investigator, an 

 acknowledged authority in geology, and 

 we may with confidence look forward to a 

 maintenance of high ideals and a continu- 

 ance of the progress towards their realiza- 

 tion under the present incumbent of the 



presidential chair, who has also enriched 

 the literature of geology with the results 

 of many careful and thorough investiga- 

 tions. And may we hope. Sir, that the 

 duties of your high position may not de- 

 prive us of your active participation in 

 investigation, and that you may continue 

 to manifest your interest in higher uni- 

 versity ideals by example as well as by 

 precept. It is a privilege, and I doubt not 

 for many of us an inspiration, to see for 

 ourselves what the State of Wisconsin, 

 under wise guidance, is now doing for 

 higher education, and it is equally inspir- 

 ing to note the promise the university 

 holds out of continuing in the path of 

 progress and of being in the future, as 

 she has been in the past, a zealous foster- 

 mother of productive scholarship. 



In university education, as well as in 

 other mundane affairs "the old order 

 changeth, giving place unto the new." 

 Time was when the sciences were but 

 tolerated in the university curriculum, 

 when the cultivation of the humanities was 

 regarded as the only path leading to in- 

 tellectual light. But this has all been 

 changed and the sciences have come into 

 their own. No longer do we find the 

 humanists endeavoring to maintain a posi- 

 tion of extreme pharisaism, nor is 'cul- 

 ture,' a term much abused and suggestive 

 of the hot-bed or conservatory, regarded as 

 obtainable only by a course in the humani- 

 ties. No, all this has changed, and just 

 as the dominance in higher education of 

 the literw divince gave place to that of the 

 literce humaniores, so the humanities have 

 yielded to the scientific discipline or at 

 least have been forced to admit it to a posi- 

 tion of equality. 



The causes for this are not far to seek. 

 They are the result of the necessity for 

 keeping the lines of higher education in 

 touch with human interests, and never 

 have these interests been so bound up in 



