July 17, 1903.] 



SCIENCE. 



75 



Ileuee whenever I hear complaints on the 

 part of busy px-aetitiouers or teachers of 

 medicine that time is absorbed by routine 

 work which in their judgment might be 

 much more profitably spent in research 

 work, I do not always lend a consenting 

 ear to the complaint. I have known many 

 laboratories where teaching was not re- 

 quired which failed to do the work for 

 Avhieh they were estiiblished. I have 

 known many other laboratories, seemingly 

 overwhelmed by routine work, in which 

 the daily discharge of practical duties led 

 to profound and life-giviug discoveries. I 

 would say in passing that it seems to me 

 that under the endowment of research 

 work made by Andrew Carnegie at Wash- 

 ington, the decision not to build a labora- 

 tory for special research but to seek out 

 research workers among practical students 

 in the various technical and professional 

 laboratories of the country is eminently 

 wise and philosophical and well calculated 

 to bring larger returns than would be pos- 

 sible in a single laboratory divorced from 

 the every-day practical pi;rsuits of a tech- 

 nical school or university. 



For this reason, at least, students who 

 are developed by the smaller colleges are 

 frequently to be congratulated. They be- 

 come self-reliant, they learn to meet diffi- 

 culties, they study for love of knowledge 

 and their enforced contact with natui'C 

 stimulates the scientific sense and makes 

 them productive workers. I have little 

 sympathy too with the study of problems 

 which have no practical value and are 

 mere intellectual gjannastics. 



It is not those who have had the most 

 abundant leisiire or the best facilities for 

 study who have accomplished the most. 

 Take the historian Parkman with his feeble 

 health, his impaired eyesight and his gen- 

 eral state of nervous exhaustion which 

 often permitted no more than five minutes 

 of effective labor each day, and consider 



how much he accomplished by perseverance 

 and by concentration of purpose and ef- 

 fort. Take Pasteur, not even a physician, 

 yet wrestling mightily aud effectively with 

 the problems of disea.se, handicapped by 

 povert}', paralj'sis and inadequate labo- 

 ratory facilities and consider what the 

 world owes to him. Nor do such men 

 belong wholly to the past. All students 

 may draw inspiration and learn humility 

 from a teacher of chemistry at a western 

 university who, deprived wholly of sight 

 by a cruel accident, has had the resolution 

 and fortitude to continue his work as a 

 teacher and investigator, and who has at- 

 tained scientific results highly creditable 

 to himself and to the institution with 

 which he is connected. The search after 

 scientific truth has the advantage that it 

 does not depend upon externals, but rather 

 upon the intellectiial force of the indi- 

 vidual ; not upon the outward man, but the 

 indwelling spirit. 



In your chosen profession be students 

 and productive workers always. Do not 

 look for speedy results and do not be dis- 

 couraged if the secrets of nature are not 

 wrested from her jealous grasp without a 

 severe struggle. The foundations of our 

 art are broad and deep, and the super- 

 structure should be erected slowly and 

 with care, by accurate observation of dis- 

 ease and painstaking deductions. In your 

 life as physicians l)e prepared for trials, 

 disappointments and adversities. Take 

 for your motto the words written by Sir 

 Thoma-s Browne, that eminent physician, 

 more than two centuries ago. "In this 

 virtuous Voyage of thj^ Life hull not about 

 like the Ark ^\-it.hout the use of Rudder, 

 I\Iast or Sail and bound for no Port. Let 

 not disappointment cause Despondency 

 nor difficulty Despair. Think not that 

 you are Sailing from Lima to Manillia, 

 when you may fasten up the Rudder and 

 sleep before the Wind; but expect rough 



