December 12, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



8-il 



recognized by the average man and woman 

 because its meaning is more obscure and its 

 relation to the ordinary affairs of life more 

 difficult to demonstrate clearly. I mean 

 the duty of the school as a center for con- 

 tinued research. The relation between 

 highly trained men of the research type 

 and the proper education of professional 

 students is too clear to need extended 

 demonstration. Standards can be set and 

 applied only by those who have the broad- 

 est and strongest command of the profes- 

 sional situation. Then, also, the advice on 

 technical problems which is to be furnished 

 the state in time of need can come only 

 from those who have themselves enjoyed 

 the most thorough training and have 

 demonstrated their ability as original 

 workers in their individual fields. It is, 

 however, equally essential that the profes- 

 sional school should be a center of continued 

 experimental work. The discoveries of sci- 

 ence that follow one another with such 

 rapidity in these days must be tested, ex- 

 tended, applied, in order to have the maxi- 

 mum value for the race. The ability to test 

 such discoveries depends very definitely 

 upon acquiring, retaining and exercising 

 the research habit. Unless a man keeps on 

 investigating, unless he continues to experi- 

 ment, he is not in a position to give the 

 right value to a new discovery, or to place 

 it in its correct relation to the other facts in 

 his field, and to interpret it in a thorough 

 and practical manner for the benefit of the 

 community. The man who has devoted 

 himself exclusively to teaching, or exclu- 

 sively to the practise of his profession, 

 whose entire mental energies are expended 

 in carrying out his program of education, 

 or in discharging his responsibilities to 

 those who seek his advice and counsel, can 

 not fully discharge his duties towards the 

 state as the member of a professional fac- 



ulty. As the delta of the river is gradually 

 built up by the continued accumulation of 

 myriads of minute particles, so the knowl- 

 edge of one generation reaches a higher 

 level by minute additions which come to it 

 from a multitude of individual sources. If 

 knowledge is to advance, and science to be- 

 come more useful to the human race, if the 

 life of to-morrow is to be richer and more 

 varied than that of to-day, if the man of 

 the future is to be freer from disease and 

 more perfect in physical development, both 

 individually and collectively, than the man 

 of to-day, then every worker in the field of 

 science must contribute at least his little 

 part to the accumulation of new facts and 

 new relations upon which in ultimate analy- 

 sis this advance depends. The teacher who 

 is adding to his knowledge only by the read- 

 ing of that which has been acquired by 

 others, is failing to cultivate a power that 

 is of fundamental value to the institution 

 and to the commonwealth. The expert who 

 is merely repeating the work that he has 

 done over and over again, who applies to 

 every new situation only the methods and 

 results of older experimenters, is not doing 

 his part towards the institution he repre- 

 sents and the community that claims his 

 service. It is not only true that the men 

 who have contributed the great advances 

 in knowledge have been those who applied 

 themselves insistently to independent inves- 

 tigation, but also that the inspiring teach- 

 ers and the efScient directors of public 

 activity have been conspicuous for their 

 devotion to research and their contributions 

 to knowledge. Medical science is of recent 

 growth. The application of discoveries in 

 allied sciences to the cure and prevention 

 of disease has yielded splendid results, but 

 the work has only just begun and rich op- 

 portunities await the coming of new investi- 

 gators. The welfare of the race demands 



