854 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIV. No. f 



The most notable example of such a 

 momentary success, so far as the study of 

 mathematics is concerned, is to be found 

 at Harvard during the fifties and early 

 sixties, where, under the guidance of Ben- 

 jamin Peiree, a band of young men devoted 

 themselves successfully to the pursuit of 

 higher mathematics.^ A few of these have 

 since attained world-wide fame, while 

 others were influential in introducing ad- 

 vanced mathematical instruction into the 

 United States twenty or thirty years later. 

 Peiree 's success in collecting at this time a 

 fair number of competent students for 

 graduate work seems to have been due pri- 

 marily to the presence of the office of the 

 American Nautical Almanac at Cambridge 

 from 1849 to 1866, and, secondarily, to the 

 founding in 1847 of the Lawrence Scien- 

 tific School,* which, in those early years, 

 possessed, under the leadership of Louis 

 Agassiz, Jeffries Wyman, Asa Gray and 

 others, some of the aspects of what is now 

 known as a graduate school. 



We notice, in passing, the contrast pre- 

 sented at this time, and for many years 

 after, between the increasing supply of 

 good astronomers in this country and the 

 lack of men who, even by a stretch of the 

 imagination, could be called mathemati- 



^ Peiree was tutor or professor of mathematics 

 at Harvard from 1831 till his death in 1880, but, 

 except during the period here considered, it was 

 only in the last ten years of his life that, under the 

 influence of an expanding elective system, he again 

 began to have an appreciable number of advanced 

 students. 



'' In the same year the department of philosophy 

 and the arts was organized at Yale with the pur- 

 pose of furnishing ' ' resident graduates and others 

 with the opportunity of devoting themselves to 

 special branches of study," these branches em- 

 bracing "theology, law, medicine and more partic- 

 ularly mathematical science and physical science 

 and its applications. ' ' It was in this department 

 that the doctor's degree was established in 1860, 

 as noted above. 



cians. It may fairly be said that the 

 mathematical talent of the country was at 

 this time diverted to astronomy. 



Various circumstances united to bring a 

 large measure of success in the establish- 

 ment of graduate instruction in all fields, 

 and in particular in mathematics, during 

 the years 1870-1890. The great increase 

 of wealth in the country brought with it 

 endowments of many sorts which strength- 

 ened the older universities and established 

 some important new. seats of learning. 

 Three things may be mentioned which, on 

 this basis of material prosperity, did more 

 than anything else to help forward the 

 cause of graduate study in the critical 

 period we are now considering. 



1. Study Abroad. — For many years an 

 occasional American had gone abroad to 

 complete his studies. Thus B. A. Gould, 

 a pupil of Benjamin Peiree and a graduate 

 of the class of 1844 at Harvard, who later 

 became eminent as an astronomer, studied 

 with Gauss in Gottingen and took his doc- 

 tor's degree there in 1848. Similarly J. 

 Willard Gibbs after taking his doctor's 

 degree at Tale in 1863 spent three years 

 (1866-1869) in Paris, Berlin and Heidel- 

 berg, where he studied with Kirchhoff, 

 Helmholtz, Weierstrass and others. A few 

 more cases of a similar sort might be re- 

 corded, but it was not until the end of the 

 seventies or the beginning of the eighties 

 that the stream of mathematical students 

 from America to Europe (generally to 

 Germany) became a steady one. This 

 tendency to go to Germany for the closing 

 years of study contributed probably more 

 than anything else to build up sound 

 standards of productive scholarship and of 

 graduate teaching, without which all at- 

 tempts to establish advanced instruction in 

 this country must have remained abortive. 

 Its success was in part due to the establish- 



