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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVIII. No. 983 



selves somewhat in the frame of mind of 

 the Orientals to whom the worship of ances- 

 tors is a vital part of life, and we may 

 endeavor from our line of ancestry to draw 

 strength and inspiration for the year's 

 work. 



"We can do so the more readily because 

 the newness of these buildings is wearing 

 off. Tear after year great meetings have 

 been held in this room until its aspect is 

 becoming familiar and it is associated with 

 the feelings of uplift which great audiences 

 give. Ivy begins to cover our walls; while 

 tradition, inheritance, the priceless influ- 

 ence of the past more and more assert them- 

 selves. They are indeed one of the great 

 possessions of the university, to which, 

 amid omnipresent change and newness, 

 despite incomparable improvement and 

 convenience, we are prone sometimes to be 

 less sensible than we ought. Let us then 

 run back to the earlier days in the natural 

 sciences in the old Columbia and let the 

 masters of those times make the first appeal 

 for their beloved pursuits. 



A century and a half ago the "natural 

 sciences, ' ' as the various branches were col- 

 lectively called, were given less recognition 

 in systems of education than became the 

 custom later. The very name "natural" 

 is itself an interesting commentary on the 

 habit of thought of the time. There were 

 "natural" and "revealed" religion; "nat- 

 ural" and "intellectual" philosophy; the 

 "natural" man, much to his discredit, was 

 contrasted with the " spiritual ' ' man. Even 

 in my own schoolboy days we studied ' ' nat- 

 ural philosophy" instead of physics. The 

 point of view, bred especially in the clois- 

 ters, that there was something vaguely 

 wicked about the great world of the out-of- 

 doors had not been outgrown. AU will re- 

 call that curious phase of thought, current 

 to a certain degree among the ancients, still 

 more generally developed among the peo- 



ple of the Middle Ages, and stiU strong 

 among ignorant and superstitious peoples 

 to-day, which ascribes something uncanny, 

 harmful, and even demoniacal to the phe- 

 nomena of nature. Deep ravines, dark 

 recesses of the woods, gloomy caverns with 

 their hordes of devilish-looking bats, the 

 very darkness of night itself, and many 

 other perfectly innocent and to us irresisti- 

 bly attractive objects of study were looked 

 upon by our forefathers as things accursed. 

 The old habits survive for us in many a 

 story and legend ; they have furnished the 

 charm of operas, as in the Freischiitz and 

 Tannhauser; and they cast an interesting 

 side-light on the men and times of the past. 

 But it has taken many years to outgrow 

 them and their germs are part and parcel 

 of us to-day. Our forerunners in natural 

 science had to contend with them, and they 

 were very real obstacles in the way. They 

 were not without their influence on courses 

 of study and in marking the channels in 

 which the currents of instruction ran. 



Education in the old days, as we all 

 know, was chiefly work in languages, litera- 

 ture, mathematics and so-called mental 

 philosophy. The subjective mind was the 

 all-important point of attack. The objec- 

 tive universe gained recognition later. 



In the eighteenth century in America, 

 the natural sciences received organised care 

 and oversight first in Philadelphia, then the 

 chief American center of intellectual and 

 social life. Benjamin Franklin founded 

 the American Philosophical Society in 

 1769, the pioneer of our scientific associa- 

 tions, an ancient but still vigorous body, 

 in which, membership to-day is one of the 

 chief prizes for men of science in this 

 country. Eleven years later came the 

 American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 

 Boston. In 1812 the Philadelphia Acad- 

 emy of Sciences was organized; and five 

 years thereafter the New York Lyceum of 



