August 7, 1903.] 



SCIENCE. 



1G9 



none too common. We smile, for example, 

 at the folly of the sailor, whose fears may 

 be drowned in a pot of beer and who com- 

 mits his fate to a rusty horseshoe nailed 

 over the entrance to his forecastle. And 

 yet, our 'city fathers' permit epidemics of 

 typhoid fever to prevail with startling fre- 

 quency and with frightful mortality. 

 Think, too, for a moment of the shocking 

 waste of health and wealth to which the 

 alluring advertisements of quacks and 

 other charlatans bear testimony in the 

 daily and weekly pi-ess. Think also of the 

 waste of time and money which comes from 

 the habit of gambling so common in all 

 races from the lowest to the highest. All 

 such vices are deeplj' rooted in the human 

 family and fortified by our superstitious 

 tendencies to accept without proof any- 

 thing which promises the marvelous. No 

 mere literary training can help much to 

 overcome this deplorable inheritance. 

 Nothing short of the scientific frame of 

 mind and habits of thought can prevail 

 against such ancestral traits. 



There is endless scope, therefore, for 

 additional improvements and advances 

 along the lines your training in science has 

 fitted you to follow. Science bids you look 

 forward, then, with confident optimism. 

 But you should waste no time in idle con- 

 templation of the splendid achievements 

 already attained. The price of progress, 

 like that of liberty, is eternal vigilance. 

 One must be ever active, ever patiently 

 persistent, proving all things and holding 

 fast to that which is good. 



R. S. Woodward. 



Tfit: in.i.Arioy of science to common 



LIFE.* 



I HAVE been honored by being selected 

 to speak to you on the present occasion. 



* Sigma Xi Society address, June 18, 1903, 

 before the chapter of the University of Penn- 

 sylvania. 



The high ideals of this society demand that 

 I should attempt to leave my restricted 

 field of study for a time, and that I should 

 speak of those broader questions that agi- 

 tate general scientific thought— that I 

 should drop the role of the botanist, and 

 assume that of the scientist and the man. 

 Mj' theme is 'The Relation of Science to 

 Common Life,' the life of the mass of in- 

 dividuals, of the nation, if you will. A 

 very unacademie subject, you will say, as 

 measured by the older standards. I chose 

 it on that account. In not a few univer- 

 sity centers, the time has not long gone 

 when such a subject would have been 

 curtly dismissed with the remark, 'We 

 have nothing to do with common life; we 

 follow our own high educational aims.' 

 Too often the universities have stood aside 

 in cold and ^ms.^^npathetic isolation— shall 

 I not also say in helpless disfavor— while 

 the busy thinking world outside has carried 

 forward the beacon lights of truth and 

 progress. Listen to Wliewell when, as 

 IMaster of Trinity College (Cambridge), 

 he went up to London fifty years ago to 

 deliver his notable address before the Royal 

 Institution. Speaking on 'The Influence 

 of the History of Science upon Intellectual 

 Education,' he said: "I venture to address 

 you, relying upon an indulgence which I 

 have more than once experienced. Of such 

 indulgence I strongly feel the need, on 

 various accounts, but especially that, being 

 so unfrequently in this metropolis, I do not 

 know what trains of thought are passing 

 in the minds of the greater part of my 

 audience who live in the midst of a stimu- 

 lation produced by the lively interchange 

 of opinion and discussion on the prominent 

 questions of the day." Uttered soon after 

 the exhibition of 1851, and when the scien- 

 tific world was entering on new conquests, 

 such an apologj' may seem unaccountable. 

 Happily, our university presidents of to- 



