July 2, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



27 



in aid from the public treasury. But even 

 were it literally true, the public would still 

 have a right to know something about the pol- 

 icy of a great institution, chartered by the 

 state, which performs so vitally important a 

 function in the formation of public opinion 

 and in the creation of an intelligent under- 

 standing among the people of the problems of 

 science and government. They have the right 

 to inquire as to motives and actions of those 

 who presume to limit the boundaries of re- 

 search, to define what is and what is not truth, 

 and to put the brand of uniformity upon the 

 teaching body. 



There is something peculiarly Prussian in 

 the assumption that because Mr. A., repre- 

 senting great corporation interests, and Mr. 

 B., appointed to the board by reason of his 

 wealth and his willingness to invest it in uni- 

 versity buildings and endovrments, have 

 thereby acquired a vested right to design and 

 apply their own peculiar brand of orthodoxy 

 to the teaching of an institution which pro- 

 claims in its motto that " culture without 

 character is vain." What sort of " character " 

 wiU be imposed upon the student body by 

 teachers compelled under threat of summary 

 dismissal to take an oath of conformity to the 

 views of men who can not bear to hear a frank 

 discussion of political, social or economic re- 

 form? The public has every right to know 

 whether its greatest teaching institution is 

 free to seek the truth and to proclaim it with- 

 out fear, or whether it is compelled to sup- 

 press every opinion on economics or politics 

 that is for the moment distasteful to trustees 

 whose sole responsibility is discharged when 

 they appoint able and fearless men to its fac- 

 ulties and attend to the business details of uni- 

 versity management.— The Philadelphia Puh- 

 lic Ledger. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 

 Nature and Science on the Pacific Coast. A 

 Guidebook for Scientific Travelers in the 

 West. Edited under the auspices of the 

 Pacific Coast Committee of the American 

 Association for the Advancement of Sci- 

 ence. Paul Elder & Co., San Francisco. 

 1915. 



This is a happily conceived and creditably 

 executed enterprise by the Pacific Coast Com- 

 mittee of the American Association for the 

 Advancement of Science. Its many chapters, 

 individually and severally, are chart and 

 compass to the natural attractions and scien- 

 tific wealth of the west coast and will make 

 an effective guide to the traveler of this and 

 future years. AU the world is on the way to 

 the Pair, and it is certainly appropriate that 

 the organized body of scientific men of the 

 west have joined hands in preparing this use- 

 ful and attractive exposition of what that part 

 of the country is prepared to and does con- 

 tribute to the scientific treasury of the world. 

 Probably the old-time breed of eastern folk 

 who entertained the notion that the Pacific 

 ocean washes the western foot of the Alle- 

 ghany Mountains is now pretty nearly extinct, 

 but there is still something of this psycholog- 

 ical attitude in the east toward the west which 

 needs the infusion of just such a serum as a 

 book of this kind, presented in inviting form 

 and popular dress, may produce. Dwellers in 

 Manhattan say they can identify a Brook- 

 lynite by his psychology; likewise the dwell- 

 ers in the east have been wont to look upon 

 the great propositions of the west as not seri- 

 ously entering into their lives. This is 

 merely by way of expressing an inherited 

 mental attitude. Tides and winds, ocean cur- 

 rents and climate zones, different fauna and 

 other flora, newer mountains, younger rocks, 

 unlike opportunities for economic develop- 

 ment, and dissimilar production, all certainly 

 do tend to make the Pacific states unlike, in 

 natural factors and product, to those of the 

 east. As woman can not be expressed in terms 

 of man, so the west can never become fully 

 comprehensible in terms of the east; but the 

 readjustments in ideals and idolatry which 

 invasion of the west by the east requires, are 

 essential to the making of the full-fledged 

 American. 



So the present occasion affords every ex- 

 cuse for such an authorized production of 

 these chapters on the natural aspect of the 

 Pacific coast, all of them prepared by men 



