570 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVir. No. 432. 



because they are employees rather than 

 free men. We are not permitted to follow 

 our chosen leaders, but men are placed in 

 authority over us. We are paid to teach 

 or the like; bur scientific work must be 

 done almost clandestinely. We do not 

 earn our livings and support our families 

 by the results of our real work; we are 

 grateful if some charity will publish them 

 for us. The- pleasure of discovery, fame 

 and honor are supposed to be our reward. 

 Every normal man finds his chief pleasure 

 in doing his work well and with the appre- 

 ciation of others; but under existing social 

 institutions the value of his work and the 

 approval of his fellows are usually meas- 

 ured by his freedom and his income. The 

 scientific man, seeking the truth without 

 regard to consequence, should be more 

 fearless, simple, fair and kindly than 

 others. In so far as this is not the case, 

 it appears to me to be due to the condi- 

 tions under which he works. 



Evolution has progressed by the survival 

 of the strong and the cunning, of those 

 armed with tooth and claw, of those quick 

 to run and ready to hide. It has given 

 us the vulture and the parasite. Human 

 history has left us the legacy of the iron 

 hand and the crooked back. The man en- 

 gaged in scientific work has too often filled 

 the position of an upper servant— a tutor 

 to the sons of the rich, a priest subscribing 

 to tenets that are outworn, an employee 

 dependent on the favor of presidents and 

 boards,— for whom silence is silver and 

 flattery gold. As the downtrodden have 

 .•submitted to servitude on the ground that 

 they will have their reward in a future life, 

 «o scientific men have labored in the hope 

 •of recognition and posthumous fame. They 

 have scrambled for degrees, titles, mem- 

 bership in academies and the like, trying 

 lo climb up on each others' necks. But 

 the things that have been are not the things 

 that shall be. The men who labor with 



their hands have learned to unite in trades- 

 unions ; they have shown themselves ready 

 and able to make the utmost sacrifices for 

 their common cause. And they have won ; 

 they have used the governors of states and 

 the president of the United States for their 

 purposes. Their leader can speak to the 

 president on terms of equality; the mem- 

 bers of the National Academy of_Seiences 

 waited last spring for an hour in the ante- 

 room of the White House until he did them 

 the honor to shake hands with them. Is 

 there a university in the world whose 

 faculty would resign because one member 

 was unjustly treated, or would scientific 

 men subscribe ten per cent, of their in- 

 comes to support a faculty that had so 

 resigned? But the things that have been 

 are not the things that shall always be. 



Scientific men will not forever submit to 

 being embroidered with gold braid and 

 bound with red tape. The diplomacy and 

 intrigues of courts are slowly giving way 

 to the rough and ready ways of democ- 

 racy. For a time there may be confusion 

 and some waste; but on the whole there is 

 more promise in the man in shirt sleeves 

 than in the conventional gentleman. I be- 

 lieve that it is our part here in America 

 to form a true democracy of science, where 

 each will do the work for which he is best 

 fit and will receive the reward that he de- 

 serves, where we shall choose our own lead- 

 ers and follow our leaders because we recog- 

 nize them as such. I am myself an opti- 

 mist. I am sure that the time will come 

 when scientific work will assume the posi- 

 tion that belongs to it. The time will come 

 when there will be peace and good will on 

 earth, and all things will be managed 

 efficiently and in accord with the pure light 

 of reason. I am indeed so much of an 

 optimist that I am glad to live in a period 

 of transition and turmoil, rather than in 

 the millennium for which we strive and 

 suffer. " J. McKeen Cattell. 



Columbia University. 



