November 4, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



621 



energy and the efScient leadership of Com- 

 missioner Evans and his colleagues. 



As I have already remarked, what we 

 need in every community is an intelligent 

 and efficient leadership in this as in other 

 matters of public concern. This need 

 necessitates not only a training that will 

 give us the few high-grade specialists who 

 shall become our public health officers, but 

 a training which may well be regarded as 

 an essential element in the education of 

 every man and woman who is to occupy a 

 place of influence in the councils of the 

 community and of the nation. Where shall 

 we look for such training if not to our col- 

 leges. There should be in every college 

 course required work of the character indi- 

 cated and every college should have its 

 department devoted to instruction in mat- 

 ters of sanitation and preventive medicine, 

 not as an annex to some other already over- 

 crowded department, but as a separate de- 

 partment with its full quota of instructors 

 and provided with suitable laboratories. It 

 may be of interest in this connection to 

 observe that within the past two years 

 great interest has been manifested not only 

 by our leading medical schools, but by our 

 colleges of liberal arts in extending their 

 offerings in this line. Cornell is perhaps 

 the best illustration of what can be accom- 

 plished in a popular way. Last year, the 

 members of the faculty of that institution, 

 in cooperation with the New York State 

 Board of Health, conducted a course of lec- 

 tures, extending throughout the year, upon 

 the general problems relating to public 

 health. The course proved to be very pop- 

 ular with the student body and was so 

 largely attended both by the students and 

 the citizens that at times standing room in 

 the auditorium was at a premium. Similar 

 courses have been either introduced or are 

 now under discussion at several of the 

 other leading institutions of the country. 

 So far as I know, no institution has yet 



established a department of public health 

 and preventive medicine. It is a develop- 

 ment, however, that is bound to come in 

 the immediate future and it is only a ques- 

 tion as to what institiition shall claim the 

 honor of priority. 



By way of conclusion, may I once more 

 emphasize the important role that the sci- 

 ences have played in our national progress 

 and in the trend of our educational institu- 

 tions, reflecting as these institutions do, not 

 only the demands of a progressive people, 

 but the requirements of an expanding and 

 unfolding future. 



Above all, the chief purpose of science is 

 service, whether that service be in the de- 

 velopment of the national resources of a 

 country or in aiding the growth and ex- 

 pansion of its industries and of its com- 

 mercial power ; or whether it be in the con- 

 servation of those resources that constitute 

 the inherited wealth of a people. In the 

 great contest of nations, matching the efS- 

 ciency of one people against that of an- 

 other, no service is more important than 

 that which science has rendered and is still 

 to render in the preservation and protec- 

 tion of human life against the inroads of 

 unnecessary and preventable disease. May 

 you as students and teachers of the biolog- 

 ical sciences, devoted as you are and should 

 be to the development of these sciences in 

 their broadest aspects, and all of us as citi- 

 zens of a country that never hesitates to 

 provide generously for those things that 

 are for the general good and that con- 

 tribute to national prosperity and success, 

 lend a helping hand, to the end that our 

 educational institutions and our coi;ntry 

 may stand foremost among those institu- 

 tions and those nations contributing most 

 to the great service which this generation 

 shall render to the general progress of 

 mankind. 



E. J. TOWNSEND 



Unitebsitt of Illinois 



