174 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVIII. No. 449. 



delphians consume, while much of the sew- 

 age water might again be collected, and 

 returned to us as hygienic water which 

 might well replace that of the unregener- 

 ate Schuylkill. The correctness of every 

 detail of this Berlin has already demon- 

 strated in her broad irrigation system. 



In the accomplishment of such truly ro- 

 mantic results the schoolman and the lay- 

 man, the university teacher and the shop 

 worker, have equally had to do. Already 

 it is recognized that to prepare, cut, stain 

 and microscopically examine a paraffin sec- 

 tion, or to separate out the constituents of 

 a chemical mixture, are. both liberal educa- 

 tions in which the skilled hand, eye, nose 

 and ear all cooperate with their complex 

 and correlated central manifestation that 

 we call mind. Measured by such methods 

 knowledge is not the mental quantity and 

 quality supplied by this or that university, 

 but is the earnest effort of man to en- 

 lighten and guide himself and his fellow 

 man. 



As brethren of the Sigma Xi then it 

 becomes us to agitate constantly for the 

 restoration of the grand ideals set by Paris 

 and Bologna universities of the tenth to 

 the fourteenth century. There learning 

 was imparted to all who loved it, there 

 nationality, or name, or condition formed 

 no bar to the owner — whose gown at times 

 served to cover his rags, and there the 

 scholars of their day— courted by emperor 

 and entertained by the nobles — were the 

 teachers of these famotis old centers. Above 

 all we should so school ourselves as to be 

 ready to slough off during each unfolding 

 year— with its new possibilities for prog- 

 ress — the skin of prejudice or preference 

 that may have hardened round us in the 

 preceding period. The biological teaching 

 of Huxley in '55 was very different from 

 that of '75, and this again from that of '90. 

 In university life the caution is constantly 



needed. A recent magazine number chron- 

 icled the people's vote of three large cities, 

 in favor of municipal ownership of dis- 

 tributive agencies, and somewhat pungently 

 added: 'While the academicians are discus- 

 sing the theory of municipal ownership the 

 people, in these cities at least, are getting 

 into the habit of voting for it.' Periodic 

 intellectual molting conduces often to 

 sound mental life. 



It is a property of most scientific ques- 

 tions that they project themselves into the 

 future. Whether we accept the teachings 

 of Kidd's suggestive couple of volumes or 

 no, his prophetic outlook into the future 

 is inspiring, and despite destructive criti- 

 cisms his principle of 'projected efficiency' 

 is one that every true scientist tacitly be- 

 lieves in and works up to. We all think 

 of leaving the world better for our descend- 

 ants—be they fleshly or mental children — 

 and the man who asked in selfish uncon- 

 cern, 'What has posterity done for me?' 

 deserved no children, and equally deserved 

 that his good deeds should be buried with 

 him. Like that of Paul, our life should 

 be a consecrated unrest. We have not 

 yet attained, neither are we already per- 

 fect. 



While it will gladly be conceded that few 

 if any countries foster scientific advance 

 more than America, it will as readily be 

 conceded that this has been mainly on the 

 applied side, and that much remains for 

 accomplishment in non-remtinerative edu- 

 cational equipment. Here I place in front 

 rank the need for spacious and splendidly 

 furnished museums for all the sciences. 

 Those of us who have walked, time and again, 

 through the mechanical, the chemical, the 

 zoological, the mineralogical and other sec- 

 tions of the South Kensington Museum, or 

 corresponding ones of the continent— not 

 to speak of many local miiseimis of lesser 



