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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVII. No. CSS 



vision. The method of subsidizing is a 

 method fitted to encourage or perhaps to 

 discover the individual worker of talent, 

 rather than to promote an increase in 

 knowledge. While it has much more to 

 commend it than the wasteful and almost 

 useless system of granting prizes, we must 

 admit that in its actual working it is hap- 

 hazard ; a blind sowing of seed, the harvest 

 from which depends largely upon chance 

 and circumstances. One may be allowed to 

 question, therefore, whether it might not 

 be more productive of good, if societies 

 with funds entrusted to their keeping, such 

 as the National Academy of Sciences, would 

 make an effort to dispose of their funds in 

 the systematic investigation of funda- 

 mental problems. The society mentioned 

 has at hand, in its own membership, men 

 who are abundantly qualified to select the 

 right problems and to direct and coordinate 

 the work of those entrusted with the several 

 investigations. Whether such a use of its 

 funds is permissible I can not say, but if 

 such is the case one can scarcely doubt 

 that by organizing systematic research of 

 a cooperative character the National Aca- 

 demy could make itself a living and stimu- 

 lating force in the scientific activity of this 

 country. But among the agencies to which 

 we may look for help in the matter of 

 cooperative work, the two which seem best 

 adapted for this variety of research are the 

 laboratories supported by the government 

 and the specially endowed institutions of 

 the type of the Carnegie, Rockefeller, 

 Wistar, etc. In regard to the governmental 

 laboratories it is natural to suppose that 

 the problems to which their resources might 

 be applied most appropriately are those 

 possessing an immediate economic impor- 

 tance. Individual scientists in the service 

 of the government have without doubt con- 

 tributed many investigations of the first 

 importance, as they would have done under 



any circumstances which offered them equal 

 facilities for work. But the specific func- 

 tion to which these departments are best 

 adapted would seem to be the prosecution 

 of investigations bearing more or less di- 

 rectly upon the health and wealth of the 

 citizens of the country. I do not mean to 

 say that it is inappropriate for the govern- 

 ment to give its support to investigations 

 of the more fundamental and theoretical 

 problems of science, but at present, at least, 

 funds from this source can probably be ob- 

 tained with least opposition when the work 

 undertaken gives promise of a more or 

 less immediate application to the needs of 

 life. In follomng out such investigations 

 the laboratories of the government are 

 peculiarly fitted by their organization to 

 effect a coordination of the labors of their 

 individual workers. On the contrary, the 

 specially endowed institutions have a freer 

 hand in the disposition of their resources 

 and are less hampered by the necessity of 

 adopting a utilitarian policy. With large 

 means at their command and with a cen- 

 tralized authority, fitted to direct and con- 

 trol the investigations made by their sci- 

 entific staffs, these institutions constitute 

 ideal mechanisms for testing the effective- 

 ness of cooperative research— it would 

 seem, indeed, that in this field there lies for 

 them an especial opportunity. The labora- 

 tories of our universities form training 

 schools wherein young men and women 

 must be taught to use the appliances of re- 

 search, and it is almost a necessity of the 

 case that the work shall be large and varied. 

 The whole range of a given science should 

 be presented and exemplified as far as pos- 

 sible. In these laboratories also the oppor- 

 tunities for individual research should be 

 made as wide as possible— therein lies their 

 special mission, and as a matter of fact 

 this condition prevails at present, and has 

 prevailed from the beginning of scientific 



