Decembeb 30, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



939 



phuric acid" may be developed in a year's 

 work by dropping a thousand weighed 

 shingle nails into a thousand test-tubes of 

 sulphuric acid, each having the amount 

 requisite to turn the whole into an iron sul- 

 phate. The length of the period before 

 each shingle nail disappears and that be- 

 fore the resultant liquid becomes clear can 

 be measured. It may even be proved that 

 the cleaner the nail, the more quickly it 

 dissolves. But all this is not chemical re- 

 search. It gives no wider grasp on the 

 marvelous processes of chemical reaction, 

 and no greater enthusiasm for chemical 

 work, nor grasp on chemical teaching. 



If the counting in Plautus of the pre- 

 fixes in P. is a type of the only sort of re- 

 search that the classical knowledges per- 

 mit, then let them go without research. 

 Let them fall back on the charms of Latin 

 verse, the surprises of Latin wit, the match- 

 less power of description of which the 

 Greek language is capable, and the monu- 

 mental splendor of the oldest of the story- 

 tellers, who brought even the gods into his 

 service. Let literature be literature, and 

 science science, and enthusiasm will pre- 

 cede and follow any real advance in knowl- 

 edge. Let the student be free to learn and 

 not to grind. Let him go with the masters 

 of his own free will, not as he is hired by 

 the pedants. As a final result, we shall 

 have again schools of thought and action 

 in America, and the doctor's degree will 

 not be a hindrance in the profession of 

 university teaching. 



AYhen our graduate work is really, ad- 

 vanced work, under men who know the uni- 

 verse in the large as well as in the small, 

 its great movements as well as its forgotten 

 dust heaps, we shall have our American 

 schools of science, and the Darwins will 

 again ' ' walk with Henslow, ' ' over fields as 

 green as were ever those of Cambridge- 

 shire. 



With the failure of the enthusiasm of 

 the teacher, we have a lowering of ideals on 

 the part of students. Thej^ come too often 

 to look for science as a career rather than 

 as an opportunity to do that which in all 

 the world they would rather do, that which 

 they would die rather than leave undone. 

 Too often, in the words of John Cassin, 

 "thej^ look upon science as a milk cow 

 rather than as a transcendent goddess." 



The advent of the elective system, thirty 

 years ago, bore a wonderful fruitage. 

 Men, soul-weary of drill, turned to inspira- 

 tion. Teachers who loved their work were 

 met by students who loved it. The stu- 

 dents of science thirty years ago came to it 

 to escape from Latin and calculus with the 

 eagerness of colts brought from the barn 

 to a spring pasture. In regions of eternal 

 spring, these colts do not show this vernal 

 eagerness. Now that science is as much a 

 matter of course as anything else, there is 

 not this feeling of release; and the feeling 

 that one to whom the secrets of the woods 

 and hills, the story of the sea and the rocks, 

 have been made known, belongs to a chosen 

 class, disappears when these matters are 

 made open to every one. Scientific knowl- 

 edge as the result of continued endeavor 

 and of persistent longing is more appreci- 

 ated than when it comes as an open elect- 

 ive to all who have completed English 3 

 and ilathematics 5. 



In one of the poems of James "Whitcomb 

 Eiley, this sentence is expressed : 



Let's go a visiting back to Grigsby's Station, 

 Back where we used to live, so happy and so poor. 



"So happy and so poor" the American 

 college once was, that the student, the 

 teacher and nature were all together, all 

 hand in hand. It was this which made at 

 ^Munich the "Little Academy" concerning 

 which Agassiz once spoke so eloquently. 

 It was the contrast with greatness in the 

 most simple surroundings that gave the 



