AiGLST 7, 1903.] 



SCIENCE. 



173 



agriculturist 's spade or ploughshare. When 

 he saw the spirit of destruction honored and 

 that of construction lightly esteemed, Car- 

 lyle rightly growled out as follows in his 

 immortal 'Sartor Kesartus': "The Hinter- 

 schlag professors knew syntax enough, and 

 of the human soul this much: that it has 

 a faculty called memory, and could be 

 acted on through the muscular integuments 

 by appliance of birch rods. Alas! so it is 

 everywhere, so will it ever be, till an archi- 

 tect is hired, and on all hands fitly en- 

 couraged ; till communities and individuals 

 discover, not without surprise, that fash- 

 ioning the souls of a generation by Imowl- 

 edge can rank on a level with blowing their 

 bodies to pieces by gunpowder; that with 

 generals and field-marshals for killing, 

 there should be world-honored dignitaries, 

 and. were it possible, true God-ordained 

 priests, for teaching. But as yet, though 

 the soldier wears openly and even parades 

 his butchering tool, nowhere, far as I have 

 travelled, did the schoolmaster make show 

 of his instructing tool : nay, were he to 

 walk abroad with birch girt on thigh, as if 

 he therefrom expected honor, would there 

 not. among the idler cla.ss, perhaps a cer- 

 tain levity be excited?" Happily the 

 twentieth century gives promise of emanci- 

 pation alike from the marshal's sword and 

 the dominie's rod. It is for us to stnig- 

 gle toward securing that honored recogni- 

 tion for every branch of knowledge which 

 Carlyle dimly presaged. 



It has often been urged that the intru- 

 sion of so-called technical science into our 

 universities will break up all cherished 

 university ideals and dissipate the poetic 

 side of life. Both objections are equally 

 erroneous. Even in acquiring the most 

 technical detail of science, the student can 

 still exclaim with Kepler, in all humility 

 and dignity : ' God, I think thy thouglits 

 after Thee.' 



And as to real poetry and romance, sci- 

 ence i.s just beginning to unfold such. You 

 will forgive me, as a botanist, while I tell 

 you of the wonder and pleasure our stu- 

 dents expressed about a month ago, when 

 carried past Jersej^ fields of scarlet clover 

 in full bloom. This plant had converted 

 former sandy wastes into a fioral paradise. 

 But more, our workers had learned the 

 reason for its presence in such quantity, 

 and could picture to themselves the orig- 

 inally scant, but now rapidly multiplying, 

 myriads of 'nitromonas' bacteria that were 

 abso7-bing and fixing loose atmospheric 

 nitrogenous compounds. They knew that 

 these handed on much of this to the Ehi- 

 zohi 1(7)1 organism of the soil or of the clo- 

 ver tubercles, and that finally the fixed 

 assimilated nitrates were utilized by the 

 clover for its sustenance. Truly a romance 

 verified. 



Let me try to pick up another with you 

 from the gutter, and illuminate it with the 

 rays of latter-day discovery. Philadelphia 

 every year pours into her rivers millions 

 of tons of sewage. As you are aware, 

 this is rich in all the chemical products 

 needed for plant life, but, like every valu- 

 able thing, it must be handled carefully. 

 We have hitherto called it waste, and have 

 puzzled our brains how to get rid of it. 

 One of our railroad companies has found it 

 profitable to build a large viaduct over the 

 Delaware to carry our citizens quickly to 

 the New Jersey coast. No one has yet 

 been enterprising enough to build an 

 equally large aqueduct into which our 

 .sewage might be pumped, and ulti- 

 mately distributed over the thirsty 

 but capable sands of New Jersey, which 

 would blossom into life were such given. 

 To apply the statistics now to hand. 4,000 

 acres of New Jersey land within ten miles 

 of Philadelphia could then be made to 

 produce the fruits and roots that Phila- 



