NOTKMBEB 24, 1911] 



SCIENCE 



699 



tertain fountains of learning appear to be 

 •ure that there are no others." The spirit 

 of investigation is a tonic, restoring vigor, 

 ■elf -reliance, and individuality to the mem- 

 bers of the army of imitators that yearly 

 receive degrees from our colleges and uni- 

 versities. It rebukes the artist whose chief 

 ambition in life is to copy French models, 

 ridicules the classicist who is only at his 

 best when working in the Oxford atmos- 

 phere, or the scientist whose spectacles are 

 made in Germany, and says to each of 

 them, "Eyes have you and can not see, 

 ears and hear not," and with the Persian 

 poet is ready to exclaim, "I myself am 

 Heaven and Hell. ' ' Instead of offering to 

 the student an " a la carte ' ' diet of selected 

 facts and theories, it would teach him how 

 to search intelligently for facts while cau- 

 tioning him as did Bishop Berkeley to 

 "consider the pains that have been taken 

 to perplex the plainest things, that distrust 

 of the senses, those doubts and scruples, 

 those obstructions and refinements that oc- 

 cur in the very entrance of the sciences." 

 If he remembers this admonition then "it 

 will not seem strange that men of leisure 

 and curiosity should lay themselves out in 

 fruitless disquisitions without descending 

 to the particular parts of life, or informing 

 themselves in the more necessary and im- 

 portant parts of knowledge." 



The university in which the spirit of re- 

 search does not pervade the atmosphere 

 bears a relation to the students similar to 

 that of the nursery maids to the children 

 playing on the beach, always within call of 

 guardians, ever ready to emphasize the 

 danger of young people venturing beyond 

 their depth. The desire to enter deep water 

 is more quickly aroused by watching expert 

 swimmers than by reading dissertations on 

 the art of swimming. Youth rebels at the 

 needless restraints imposed by authority, 

 and as an education is generally only the 



summons bidding it listen with becoming 

 humility to the commands of the fathers, 

 those in authority should recognize that the 

 assumed indifferences of undergraduates to 

 the claims of the intellectual world is often 

 merely a protective form of reaction. In- 

 stead of repressing healthy instincts, why 

 should not students be encouraged to be- 

 lieve that it is possible for them to advance 

 the bounds of our present store of knowl- 

 edge? The consciousness of leading in the 

 procession always awakens stronger im- 

 pulses and deeper interests than can be ex- 

 pected to develop in students who in all 

 their mental excursions have been trained 

 like the participants in the parade of a 

 young ladies' boarding-school, to submis- 

 sively follow the teacher. 



The healthy, inspiring and contagious 

 spirit of independence of the modern in- 

 vestigator, recalling that of the old Vikings 

 with their uncontrollable desire to sail over 

 unknown seas, should be fostered by our 

 universities. The presence in these insti- 

 tutions of a large corps of investigators 

 each led by a dominating interest in his 

 special problems, is the sanest and safest 

 method by which to combat "commercial- 

 ism," create idealism and give undergrad- 

 uates an intelligent appreciation of the 

 pleasures of student life. "Words are 

 feminine, deeds masculine," says the old 

 Italian proverb. The patience of youth 

 has been severely overtaxed by the length 

 and number of the sermons to which it has 

 been forced to listen. To-day the American 

 university has a wonderful opportunity to 

 teach by example. By making the encour- 

 agement of productive scholarship a pri- 

 mary and not a secondary duty students 

 may be led to realize that an intelligent, 

 normal interest in any subject is in- 

 separably connected with the desire for 

 progress. 



The index of the healthy physical and 



