February 26, 1897.] 



SCIENCE. 



345 



dodging. The case against them is very plain 

 and may be put thus : I offer to pay a year's 

 subscription to Science for any man, woman or 

 child who will inform the editor of any book in 

 any language where can be found a Section, 

 Partition of a Perigon, or, as Beman and Smith 

 reprint it, Partition of the Perigon, and the 

 problems: Problem I., to bisect a perigon; 

 problem II. , to trisect a perigon ; problem III. , 

 to cut (divide) a perigon into five equal parts 

 (angles) ; problem IV. , to cut (divide) a perigon 

 into fifteen equal parts (angles), excepting Hal- 

 sted's Elements (1885) and Beman and Smith 

 (1895). The question about the word perigon 

 is an issue introduced by Beman and Smith to 

 distract attention from their ' take.' 



But their laborious researches on this matter 

 turn out highly complimentary to me. They 

 find that not a single geometry can be found in 

 any language that ever used this word until 

 after mine. They find, by actual laborious cor- 

 respondence that W. B. Smith, Newcomb, and 

 even the Italian Faifofer, saw the word for the 

 first time in Halsted's books. 



They say. Science, p. 275 : " IFe have reason 

 to believe that W. B. Smith, Newcomb and Fai- 

 fofer all did see the word for the first time in 

 Halsted's books." This is all that I have ever 

 claimed about this word, and surely it does me 

 great honor. As to whether I first coined this 

 word, I gave the facts to Cajori (see his ' The 

 Teaching and History of Mathematics in the 

 United States,' 1890, p. 237); but the question 

 for Beman and Smith is whether, like the other 

 geometers, they first saw the word in the only 

 place where any man, before their plagiarism, 

 ever saw the phrase Partition of a Perigon. 

 George Bruce Halsted. 



the national university : a suggestion. 



On the birthday of Washington this year it 

 has been proposed to bring before as many per- 

 sons as possible the thought of a National Uni- 

 versity, with portions of Washington's addresses 

 to Congress, and the clause of his will relating 

 to the subject, in order, to use his own words, 

 ' to set the people ruminating on the importance 

 of the measure as the most likely means of 

 bringing it to pass. ' 



Relatively few people know that in this docu- 

 ment the far-sighted man whom we love to 

 call the Father of his Country bequeathed to 

 the Nation the equivalent of $25,000, in trust as 

 the nucleus for the endowment of such an in- 

 stitution. To-day such an endowment would 

 appear small, but neither principle nor earnings 

 of this sum have ever been applied to the purpose 

 for which it was intended, and had it been kept 

 invested at six per cent, during the century 

 that has all but passed since the testator's death 

 this modest gift would be worth to-day over 

 $12,000,000. 



Some sentiment is, no doubt, behind the earn- 

 est movement that is now making toward the 

 realization of Washington's hopes, and popular 

 sentiment in a popularly governed country is 

 far from powerless. But the establishment of 

 an educational institution, especially of a uni- 

 versity in the proper sense, and above all of a 

 university which is expected to be in fact as 

 well as in name a National University, should 

 depend upon more than popular feeling that 

 the hopes of the broad-minded Washington de- 

 serve, even at this late day, to be realized. 



When these hopes were formed the country 

 had, in fact, not one university which to-day 

 could justify its use of the name. To-day, 

 among the hundreds of nominal universities, 

 there are scores which offer post-graduate facili- 

 ties in one or more departments suflScient to 

 justify them in ofiering advanced degrees, and 

 a few possess an equipment for work whereby 

 the doctor's degree may be earned in either of 

 the principal departments recognized as neces- 

 sary or desirable for post-graduate work, or 

 university work as contrasted with that which 

 is purely collegiate. Surely these institutions 

 may properly lay claim to the name of univer- 

 sity. 



Yet, if we possess universities worthy of the 

 name, can it be urged that these are sufficiently 

 numerous, or even sufficiently strong individ- 

 ually, to preclude the desirability of adding to 

 their number one which may hope to do in its 

 every department work equal to that done in 

 the best departments of the best existing insti- 

 tutions? The president* of one of the most 



*Jordan, The urgent need of a National Univer- 

 sity. The Forum, 22 : 600, January, 1897. 



