November 27. 1003.] 



SCIENCE. 



683 



kuowledgo slightingly is for the lips of the 

 fool. The value of abstract research to a 

 country is becomiug more widely aekuowl- 

 edged among us than it was. Sir John 

 Brunner said the other day, at Liverpool, 

 that there was no better investment for a 

 business man than the encouragement of 

 scientific i-eseareh, and that every penny 

 of the wealth he possesses has come from 

 the application of science to commerce and 

 to manufacture. And we find that munifi- 

 cent citizens have and do come forward 

 among us and meet by their individual 

 gifts, the pressing needs in this respect of 

 our community at large. 



But we welcome a new era dawning on 

 us. Liverpool, Birmingham, Sheffield and 

 other great centers begin to regard the 

 local university as an institution entitled to 

 support from the public means, for in- 

 stance; by subsidy from public rates. Such 

 subsidies can be used also for studies which 

 do not come within allotment from the 

 smaller subsidy from the central govern- 

 ment : medicine, for instance. . Proud of 

 the young universities— to which yours of 

 Toronto is a time-honored veteran— com- 

 munities and local governments are en- 

 couraging research within our universities. 

 They do not expect such research to be able 

 to pay its own way, but they recognize that 

 indirectly it does pay the community that 

 gives it a home. They feel it a duty which 

 they owe themselves. Is not the university 

 a part of their own life, and is not re- 

 search a part of the university's life-blood? 

 They feel it a right, due to their own higher 

 selves. It stimulates progress. Supported 

 by the large-handed sympathy of the com- 

 munity and the local government, it means 

 quicker advance, both material and mental, 

 it means invention, and it means medical 

 discovery. And qui facit prr alium facit 

 per se, is a motto worthy of a state. 



What, then, are finally the uses of these 

 laboratories now opened by your univer- 



sity? They will assist in training men for 

 various honorable callings, especially for 

 that most ancient one of medicine. They 

 will assist, no doubt, also to render life 

 liy practical applications of science still 

 more different from what it was only a 

 short generation ago. They will assist to 

 bring home and distribute to your com- 

 munit.y treasures of knowledge from all 

 the quarters of the globe. They will assist 

 —and it is thought dear to a high-spirited 

 people- to add, by their own contribution, 

 to the sum total of the treasures of know- 

 ledge of the whole human race. 'Noblesse 

 uhligc' appeals not onlj^ to chivalrous indi- 

 viduals but to chivalrous nations. 



Yet their highest office seems to me, per- 

 haps, not even these high ones, but a more 

 difficult still.' Genius can not by any com- 

 munity, however wealthy and powerful, be 

 made to order. In biblical language, it is 

 the gift of God. All a conununity can do 

 toward obtaining it, be our riches and will- 

 ingness a thousandfold what they are, is 

 to ensure the rare and glorious plant a 

 meed of freedom, light and warmth for 

 blossoming upon our soil. Who can doubt 

 that in this population here genius exists 

 —not sown, it is true, broadcast, for no- 

 where is it thus— yet existent, scattered 

 up and down ? This it is for the community 

 to foster, to discover. 



By the help of these finely built and fin- 

 ished laboratories this much in one direc- 

 tion can be done. The problem to which a 

 wise country turns is the discovery less of 

 things than of men. By these laboratories, 

 ade(|uately supported, your community can 

 create opportunity for the exercise of 

 powers which come from sources within 

 itself, but are utterly beyond its power to 

 produce at will. Their loftiest function is 

 creation of this opportunit}'. For that aim 

 the studies in them must be followed with 

 no single narrow technical purpose, but 

 must be wide of scope and free of access 



