864. 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXrV. No. 886 



owing to circumstances mentioned in sec- 

 tion IV., is too often uppermost in his 

 mind. A student of this category had 

 much better go abroad for his degree than 

 to a second-rate American institution. Of 

 course some care must be exercised by him 

 in the choice of his university, or he must 

 have good fortune in writing a thesis 

 M^hose weak points are not evident on a 

 superficial examination, but his task is, on 

 the whole, not a difficult one, and he gets 

 at least the advantage of a period of for- 

 eign residence. 



For another class of men foreign study 

 may be recommended without qualification, 

 namely, for able students who have al- 

 ready had a substantial training in one of 

 the better American graduate schools, or 

 who have even taken the doctor's degree at 

 such a school. Such men will naturally go 

 either to one of the great mathematical 

 centers like Paris or Gottingen, where they 

 will have the opportunity to hear lectures 

 by several of the leading mathematicians 

 of the day, and, perhaps, to see some of 

 them occasionally outside of the lecture 

 room; or they will select some mathe- 

 matician of eminence in a particular field 

 with whom they may hope to gain direct 

 personal contact, and go to the university 

 where he happens to be. Thus of late 

 years a small but steady stream of Ameri- 

 can students has gone to Italy. 



To the students just considered, and to 

 some extent to their weaker comrades men- 

 tioned above, the period of residence at a 

 great European mathematical center or of 

 contact with an eminent mathematician at 

 a less important European institution 

 brings with it a realization of what high 

 scientific ideals in mathematics are, and to 

 what an extent they prevail abroad. Such 

 ideals prevail also, it is true, at the strong- 

 est American institutions; but it is hard 

 for the young American to appreciate their 



great diffusion in a ripened civilization 

 until he has experienced it by personal 

 contact. 



ADDEESS AT TSE UNVEILING OF THE 



BUST OF WOLCOTT GIBBS IN BUM- 



FOSD HALL, CHEMISTS' CLUB, 



NOVEMBER 25, 1911 



Because of the place of his birth and that 

 where he was educated; because of the pro- 

 fession he chose and which he so highly 

 adorned; because during the greater part of 

 his mature life he applied his splendid talents 

 and broad attainments to the realization of 

 the hopes of the founder of the Royal Institu- 

 tion in his bequests to Harvard College and 

 to the American Academy of Arts and Sci- 

 ences; and because he was an academician 

 and a club man, it is eminently fitting that 

 the bust of Wolcott Gibbs should be unveiled 

 in the Eumford Hall of the Chemists' Club 

 of the City of New York. 



For on February 21, 1822, he was born in 

 this city of New York; in 1841 he received his 

 baccalaureate degree from Columbia College 

 of this city; in 1845 he received the degree of 

 M.D. from the College of Physicians and Sur- 

 geons of this city; he chose chemistry as his 

 profession; he was Eumford Professor of Har- 

 vard College and Harvard University for 

 forty-five years and a member of the Eumford 

 Committee of the American Academy of Arts 

 and Sciences for thirty years ; he was founder, 

 member and president of the National Acad- 

 emy of Sciences; he suggested and organized 

 the Union League Club of New York and he 

 promoted and supported other social organ- 

 izations. 



His education was, however, much broader 

 and more comprehensive than that comprised 

 in his satisfaction of the requirements for the 

 degrees awarded him at Columbia College and 

 the College of Physicians and Surgeons, for 

 in the interim between his graduation from 

 the first named institution and his entrance 

 on the second he served as laboratory assistant 

 to Dr. Eobert Hare, professor of chemistry in 

 the University of Pennsylvania, then the most 



