Apeil 26, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



643 



the application and progress of scientific 

 methods and discoveries as they are at the 

 present time. The nineteenth century has 

 been termed the age of science. How, I 

 wonder, will the twentieth century be 

 designated? For we are even now merely 

 on the threshold of a period of scientific 

 activity whose outcome is far beyond the 

 ken of even the most imaginative seer. 

 "We must anticipate, nay, we must all re- 

 joice, whether we be scientists or human- 

 ists, in the prospect of continually increas- 

 ing scientific activity in the years to come 

 and we must therefore look forward to a 

 greater demand for the cultivation of the 

 sciences in our educational institutions. 



The developments in all departments of 

 science in the last few years have been 

 simply marvelous, and one does not need 

 the shadows of even fifty years to bring 

 into startling relief the enormous growth 

 which has taken place not only in the ex- 

 tent and solidity of the foundations of sci- 

 ence, but in the height, the adaptability, 

 and, we may say, the elegance of the super- 

 structures. I may be pardoned if, for 

 emphasis, I introduce the personal element 

 and state that even my span of life is 

 coincident with that of the doctrine of 

 natural selection, and that I can remember 

 the interest and enthusiasm with which I 

 read in my senior year at college the but 

 recently published papers of Flemming 

 and Peremesehko portraying the phe- 

 nomena of karyokinesis and inwardly mar- 

 veled that such observations, now the ordi- 

 nary routine of an undergraduate course, 

 were possible. Truly "the thoughts of 

 men are widened with the process of the 

 suns. ' ' 



When one considers the relative recency 

 of the discovery of the Hertzian waves and 

 Rontgen rays, the actual novelty of our 

 knowledge of radioactivity and of the 

 ionic theory ; when one notes the revival of 

 the Mendelian law and the important ob- 



servations on variation and inheritance 

 which it has evoked; when one recalls the 

 important contributions to our knowledge 

 of the physiology and mechanics of growth 

 which the modern science of experimental 

 morphology has supplied; and, not to pro- 

 long the list indefinitely, when one reviews 

 the recent advances in our knowledge of 

 the principles underlying serum-therapy — 

 how can it be doubted that we are but on 

 the threshold of an era of scientific ac- 

 tivity whose outcome will far transcend 

 that of the century which has passed ? The 

 importance and far-reaching possibilities of 

 the purely scientific problems now con- 

 fronting us can not fail to stimulate in- 

 vestigation in all departments of science 

 and must continue to attract, in increasing 

 numbers, men who will find their greatest 

 pleasure in the prosecution of science for 

 the truths it will reveal. And, further- 

 more, the possibilities in the way of the 

 practical application of the results of pure 

 science, now seen as through a glass darkly, 

 must create a continually increasing de- 

 mand for men thoroughly grounded in sci- 

 entific principles, who can make realities 

 of the hopes which pure science awakens. 

 So certain is this and so certain is the 

 correlation between scientific progress and 

 national development, that the fostering of 

 scientific investigation must become, even 

 to a greater extent than now, a question 

 of national concern. 



But even although the tendency is strong 

 towards the maintenance of scientific in- 

 stitutes by the governm^ent and although 

 we have already witnessed the application 

 of private wealth to the establishment of 

 special scientific laboratories, yet it is to 

 the universities that we must chiefly look 

 now and in the future for the mainte- 

 nance in scientific work of the high ideals 

 which are the life of scientific progress. 

 For it is from the universities that the 

 ranks of those who will serve in govern- 



