Apkil 10, 1903.] 



SCIENCE. 



583 



Mater, to push forward her work and her 

 equipment, to make it strong in the rivalry 

 of the various institutions. This local 

 academic pride has secured the progress 

 which the last decades have seen: here lies 

 the one great advantage which the Amei'- 

 ican institutions have over the German 

 universities, which have to await every- 

 thing from the governmental center. Thus, 

 if we desire that this noble progress shall 

 go on, by all means do not tamper with this 

 local self -activity by giving favors on appli- 

 cation. Do not undermine it by central 

 interference ; do not annihilate that feeling 

 of responsibility among the alumni by play- 

 ing providence. Your good-will would be 

 merely an opiate for the energies of the 

 communities; they would soon leave the 

 whole care to you, and matters would then 

 be worse than before. The only help 

 for the individual researcher which is not 

 to paralyze the eagerness of the community, 

 must come either through the medium of 

 the institution to which he belongs, or from 

 central establishments which shall benefit 

 all alike. For instance, we badly need 

 large printing houses which shall print 

 scientific matter for every one without 

 profit, or mechanical establishments for 

 cheaper apparatus, as in such respects we 

 are really worse situated than Europe. 



Furthermore, a patchwork of scattered 

 favors will not only ruin those forces 

 which work for good to-day, the enthu- 

 siasm of the alumni, but it will be harmful 

 even to the workers themselves. Firstly, 

 it introduces a central power without self- 

 government: we may have the most ideal 

 men in control, and yet the door would 

 be wide open for all the bad features of 

 the spoils system and favoritism, because 

 in questions of research the decisions must 

 remain dependent upon the prejudices of 

 scientific cliques and schools. We do not 

 want academic party machines and party 



bosses; we do not want wire-pulling for 

 one scientific school as against another; 

 there are too many alarming reports afloat 

 already. There may be discussion whether 

 state life prospers better with self-govern- 

 ment or with paternal autocracy, but there 

 can be no discussion which of the two 

 systems is the better for research and 

 scholarship. Research needs free compe- 

 tition. 



But worse than the absolutely unavoid- 

 able arbitrariness of the distribution must 

 be the moral effect of the system on the 

 researchers who are favored. The charity 

 system is nowhere more tempting, but just, 

 therefore, nowhere more ruinous than in 

 the republic of scholars. Charity hides 

 the problem but can not solve it. Alms 

 for research, tendered on application with 

 pledges for good behavior and typewritten 

 manuscript, will do what the economists 

 everywhere find as the results of mere 

 charity. Instead of building up the com- 

 munity it will weaken it. Charity is 

 everywhere the easiest way out of a diffi- 

 culty, because it leaves the real difficulties 

 to those who come later. In the first 

 moment you hear a thousand God-bless- 

 you's and after a little while the energies 

 are emasculated. Research ought not to 

 go begging, research wishes to be free; 

 research wants respect, not clemency; its 

 rights, not favors. Research desires the 

 improvement to come from within, not from 

 without; by applying endowments not ac- 

 cording to the principles of politics, but 

 according to the principles of psychology, 

 trying to raise the average type, trying 

 to stimulate everybody to his best work, 

 and trying to create better conditions for 

 all alike; in all these three respects en- 

 dowments might work wonders. 



Hugo Mijnsterberg. 



Harvard Universitt. 



