August 14, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



225 



under competent guidance, it would go far 

 towards an understanding and hence an 

 amelioration of the adverse social condi- 

 tions which have so long roused the sym- 

 pathies but baffled the judgments of the 

 majorities of our fellow men. And in re- 

 spect to this appeal it is a most encourag- 

 ing fact that there are in waiting, so to 

 speak, everywhere in our country, at least, 

 increasing numbers of intelligent men and 

 women ready to endow research as soon as 

 they can find trustees of research funds in 

 whom confidence may be safely reposed. 



Secondly, this step in line towards relief 

 should consist in the development of larger 

 opportunities for research and in the col- 

 lection of corresponding endowments there- 

 for, by universities. They must lose their 

 leadership in research if they are obliged 

 in any considerable degree to depend on 

 other organizations for financial support. 

 They should recognize that the ends of re- 

 search are not limited to the highly worthy 

 object of fitting candidates for the doctor- 

 ate degree ; and they should recognize that 

 there is the amplest room for the simultane- 

 ous existence of educational institutions 

 along with other organizations whose pri- 

 mary purpose is not the diffusion but the 

 enlargement of learning. And in the ad- 

 justments now forming between these two 

 classes of establishments there should arise 

 the freest relations of reciprocity, especially 

 as regards individual investigators. Much 

 baseless fear has been expressed lest a few 

 research organizations should rob academic 

 staffs of their ablest men, as if those rela- 

 tions at first slightly unilateral might be- 

 come increasingly or wholly so. It is of su- 

 preme importance to both classes of estab- 

 lishments, and particularly to progress in 

 the immediate future, that eminent men 

 should be free to pass from one to another 

 of these establishments without encounter- 

 ing any administrative or other purely in- 



stitutional obstacles, In fact, it should be 

 esteemed one of the highest attainable ob- 

 jects of any institution to assist in the 

 production of investigators whom other in- 

 stitutions are glad to offer desirable or 

 superior opportunities. 



And thirdly, relief should come in large 

 measure through increasing appropriations 

 of public funds to forward all of those nu- 

 merous researches essential to the public 

 welfare. These fall mostly in the fields of 

 applied science and are often erroneously 

 assumed to produce only the so-called 

 "practical results" directly aimed at. But 

 every investigator knows that the by-prod- 

 ucts of such researches are usually quite as 

 important as, and often more important 

 than, their anticipated products. A vast 

 aggregate of such work is now carried on 

 by the United States government, by states 

 and by municipalities ; and it should be ob- 

 served that on the whole this work is weU 

 done, in spite of the contemptuous references 

 one sees and hears occasionally to the conduct 

 of scientific work under governmental aus- 

 pices. In a republic destructive criticism 

 of this sort has little weight, since it carries 

 with it the illogical conclusion that our gov- 

 ernors are, as a class, inferior toi the citi- 

 zens who elect them. What we much need 

 in this, as in many allied governmental af- 

 fairs, is less of destructive criticism founded 

 on the shifting sands of partisan senti- 

 ments and more of constructive criticism 

 founded on adequate knowledge of biology 

 and anthropology. As a matter of fact and 

 of justice it must be admitted that the aggre- 

 gate of high-class work of research accom- 

 plished by the bureaus of the United States 

 government in recent decades compares 

 very favorably with the corresponding 

 aggregate accomplished by educational and 

 other establishments of our country during 

 the same period. "We who labor in the lat- 

 ter establishments, therefore, have no ade- 



