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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIII. No. 845 



Lest I should be accused of altogether neg- 

 lecting principles in my zeal for facts, I will 

 also mention a few general principles which 

 can properly be employed in reasoning from 

 the above facts : 



1. The law of supply and demand. 



2. The law of the value, as incentives, of 

 rewards and punishments. 



3. The law of divided energy, according to 

 which a man can not do so much in a given 

 line if his time and energy are largely devoted 

 to something else. 



The great fact of rapid expansion is per- 

 haps the most important of all. Since the 

 most obvious feature of this expansion has 

 been that of the economic development of the 

 country and of the growth of industries, the 

 fact is usually hit off as commercial expan- 

 sion, and the effort made to deduce all our 

 peculiarities and deficiencies from our com- 

 mercialism. But the real fact is expansion, 

 a fact, it is probably of great importance. Our 

 own delay in getting the young man fairly 

 launched on his scientific career is partly due to 

 our superstition that the traditional four years 

 of college marks a minimum of time to be devoted 

 to '■ general culture," after which, only, should 

 specialization begin. Meanwhile, through the 

 raising of the standards for admission to college, 

 the period of specialization has been deferred to 

 about the age of 22. But besides this, it often 

 happens that a man just leaving college and 

 bent on a scholarly career is led to believe that 

 the best step for him next to take is to teach 

 in a secondary school; and thus the age at which 

 he enters on really advanced study is likely to be 

 delayed to 25. From observation of men studying 

 for their doctor's degree, I am convinced that the 

 man who goes straight on from college to the 

 university is usually the one who comes off best 

 in his graduate study. The years immediately 

 following the age of 20 are of great value for the 

 ready assimilation of knowledge, and, moreover, 

 the most original period of a man's life is likely 

 to follow close upon these years; and 'unless he 

 has good command of his specialty by the age of 

 25 or 27, he is rather unlikely ever to have many 

 original ideas on the subject. I am convinced 

 that specialization, for any young man whose 

 bent towards a scholarly pursuit is sufficiently 

 marked to warrant urging him to undertake it, 

 should not be delayed much beyond the age of 20. 



not commercialism — expansion in all direc- 

 tions. A necessary result of this expansion, 

 and a result abundantly in evidence, is that 

 the demand for labor of all kinds, and not 

 least for the labor of intellectually able men, 

 has been great in relation to the supply. The 

 economic reward for intellectual ability has, 

 of course, been much greater in many other 

 lines of work than in the academic, and this 

 has certainly further limited the supply avail- 

 able for scientific pursuits. For example, it 

 has been, and is, difficult to man the labora- 

 tory departments of our medical schools, for 

 the reason that the rewards awaiting the suc- 

 cessful physician, in practise, have been far in 

 excess of anything he could hope for in re- 

 search. The financial reward for scientific 

 work is everywhere less than the reward for 

 equal accomplishment in other lines ; but here 

 this difference is accentuated. In spite of this 

 fact, scholarly pursuits continue to attract a 

 very considerable number of really able men. 

 The men are attracted in part by the freedom 

 of the academic life, in part by the undoubted 

 prestige attaching to good academic positions, 

 and in largest measure, no doubt, by the work 

 itself. Improvement of the general economic 

 status of university and college teachers is of 

 course greatly to be desired in the interests of 

 broadening the labor market for this highly 

 important sort of work; but that is by no 

 means the key to the whole situation, for we 

 are confronted with an able body of men, men 

 who have proved, in many cases, their ability 

 in original work, but who nevertheless leave 

 much to be desired in the way of productivity. 

 The expansion of our educational system 

 has, if anything, outstripped our commercial 

 expansion. Universities have multiplied and 

 grown enormously, teaching forces have been 

 greatly augmented, and the demand for high- 

 class men to fill academic positions has been 

 ever on the increase. The demand has been 

 large in proportion to the supply, so that every 

 moderately equipped candidate has been as- 

 sured of a post of some dignity. Promotion 

 has been rapid, as far as it goes. In other 

 words, the labor market for all grades of acad- 

 emic work has been relatively narrow, and 



