July 1, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



11 



ertia — at another it has looked more like a 

 radical, as a storehouse of energy, endowed 

 occasionally in the higher flights of the imag- 

 ination with a reasonable soul, sometimes it 

 has taken very high ground as a point singu- 

 larity in a mathematical function, and now in 

 its weariness it has at last compromised itself 

 by claiming to be not an atom at all, but a 

 solar system of electrons, each of these being 

 that simple and transparent thing — a center 

 of strain in the ether. ' However, in all these 

 guises it has never ceased to be a useful con- 

 ception to the working chemist and thereby 

 has justified its existence. All these changes 

 serve to emphasize two matters of some im- 

 portance. The first is that it is well for us 

 men of science to realize the limitations of 

 our knowledge and to recognize that we don't 

 know much about an atom, or of any of those 

 concepts which we often so loosely describe as 

 fundamental. Tyndall rightly objected to 

 people who professed to be too much in the 

 secrets of providence. He certainly, however, 

 exposed himself to attack when he launched 

 the famous phrase that caused so much flut- 

 tering in the dovecots — the statement that he 

 could see within an atom " the promise and 

 the potency of all that is." It is a legitimate 

 flight of the scientific imagination to see any- 

 thing at all in an atom ; but it may be expedi- 

 ent for the special purposes of science not to 

 see too much. 



The other point suggested by recent experi- 

 ences is that we should pay more serious at- 

 tention than we usually do to the logic of 

 science and have as clear ideas as possible as 

 to what we are really aiming at, as to what 

 we can reasonably expect to do and not to do. 

 I doubt very much whether it is wise to wait 

 in patient expectation for the years that bring, 

 or are supposed to bring, the philosophic mind. 

 A little artificial stimulus towards philosophy 

 might accelerate the process. It seems to me 

 extremely unfortunate that men of science are 

 still so much scared by the bogey of meta- 

 physics. What we have to be afraid of is not 

 metaphysics but bad metaphysics, and it is 

 difficult to accept the simple faith of many a 

 man of science that his metaphysics is to be 



preferred to any other brand merely because it 

 is either unconscious or naive. A little quiet 

 thought and study should at least have the 

 good effect of enabling us to preserve our calm 

 when things seem to be tumbling down. It 

 should help us to realize that a science like 

 chemistry is above all else a work of art, and 

 that concepts like atoms, energy and the like 

 are not much more than pigments with which 

 we paint our pictures. The next generation 

 may find new pigments or mix the old ones 

 differently. Let us hope that they will find 

 the same artistic satisfaction in filling in the 

 picture and that the efl^ect will be even more 

 beautiful than is your science of to-day. 



THE SALARIES OF PROFESSORS AT YALE 

 UNIVERSITY 1 



We are face to face with a necessity which 

 we must meet in order to continue to do our 

 work properly; and that necessity is a sub- 

 stantial increase of the salaries of many mem- 

 bers of the teaching force. For those who are 

 giving full time to the work of instruction 

 our present normal salary scale is as follows: 

 Instructors, first yeear, $1,000; second year, 

 $1,200; third year, $1,400, fourth year and 

 thereafter, $1,600; assistant professors, first 

 term of service, $1,800 ; second term of service, 

 $2,500 ; professors, $4,000. 



It is at the very top, in the matter of sal- 

 aries of professors themselves, that the inade- 

 quacy of our present rate of pay is most 

 strongly felt. - It is there that the legitimate 

 demands of the individual and the legitimate 

 needs of the university coincide in demanding 

 large increases of salary. 



To begin with, this is the one point in which 

 we stand, we think, at a disadvantage as com- 

 pared with our competitors. The salaries of 

 Yale professors doing full work run all the 

 way from $3,500 to $5,000; but the number 

 who receive $5,000, or even $4,500, is compara- 

 tively small. Harvard, on the other hand, has 

 a scale of professional salaries running from 

 $4,500 to $5,500 ; and the number of professors 

 who are there on the highest grade or have 

 reasonable expectation of being so, is very 



^ From the annual report of President Hadley. 



