October 17, 1890.] 



SCIENCE. 



213 



for professors, where leisure, method, and incentive train 

 select men to higher and more productive efficiency than 

 before. 



" Last year college trustees elsewhere found a full half, 

 •dozen of our fellows only too attractive for their vacant 

 «hairs. But if we can thus relieve college trustees of the 

 ■difficulties under which they sometimes succumb, in select- 

 ing suitable men for professorships, we can also ease them 

 •of the great expense of providing advanced courses, and 

 from the temptation of retaining after graduation their best 

 men, who could and should utilize larger opportunities. . 



"The work of the university began a year ago, in all 

 its departments. During the first part of the year, the work 

 of furnishing and equipment was carried on side by side 

 with lectures and scientific work. Our nearly threescore 

 men (selected in part only from about nine hundred appli- 

 cants for various positions) included graduates of forty-eight 

 different universities and colleges. The printed register de- 

 scribes the buildings, grounds, and organization of the fac. 

 ulty; the system of docents and fellowships; methods and 

 courses of instruction ; and the scientific and literary equip, 

 ment of each department. During the year twenty-eight 

 professors and other instructors have given thirty-three 

 courses, attended often by other professors. This method of 

 mutual instruction Las proven a great and wholesome stimu- 

 lus. 



"In our methods of instruction, stated lectures, which are 

 required by the vote of the trustees, are the smallest part. 

 Mbow-teaching is given in the laboratory, and there is indi. 

 vidual and constant guidance of reading, as well as experi- 

 mentation, if needed or desired. Clubs, conferences, and 

 seminaries are held, where all important literature in a wide 

 field, and in different languages, is read ; each man taking 

 a subject, and reading and reporting for the benefit of oth- 

 -ers. Not only the information, but the insight, criticism, 

 methods, and standpoint of each are pooled for the edifica- 

 tion and stimulation of all. The contact between professor 

 and student was never closer, and more avenues were never 

 opened between minds working in the same place and field. 



" The most important part of our work is research, and we 

 ■wish soon to be ready to be chiefly judged by the value of 

 our contributions to the sum of human knowledge. By the 

 unanimous vote of the board of trustees, appi'oved by a 

 Tinanimous vote of the faculty, the leading consideration in 

 all engagements, re-appointments, and promotions, must be 

 "the quality and quantity of successful investigation. This 

 significant step gives us a unique character, and makes most 

 of our problems new ones. 



" It seems, and often is, a very simple and easy thing to take 

 a free look at new facts. This kind of investigation may be 

 made by any traveller or intelligent collector of specimens. 

 It is sometimes harder to slightly vary the conditions in 

 well-known fields, and note the concomitant variations in 

 the result. Both these kinds of work are, in a sense, origi- 

 nal research. Such are many of the theses for the doctor's 

 degree, not to speak of those that are not published ; so that 

 the work of the professors and the students, and the stand- 

 ing of the university and the value of its degree, are un- 

 known. Results must be had without risk of failure. Very 

 different from and above this and all so-called 'analogy- 

 work' are the investigations conducted by the aid of accom- 



plished experts, who have already taken their doctor's de- 

 gree, and give their entire time to co-operation with the pro- 

 fessors. Of these we have had one or more in each experi- 

 mental department during the year, and with excellent 

 results, for investigation. Risks of negative results, often 

 very important in themselves, must be freely taken, if re- 

 sults of great value are to be attained. 



"It is impossible, in untechnical terms, to even speak of 

 the researches undertaken here during the year, although 

 these are the chief work of the university. New minerals 

 in Arkansas, with a book on the petrography of that State; 

 chemical action as affected by electricity in the field of a 

 strong magnet; the crystal structure of isomorphous com- 

 pounds; the ultimate atomic and molecular constitution of 

 two widely different groups of chemical substances, which is 

 said to establish new and important scientific conclusions; 

 further developments of the non-euclidean geometry ; several 

 papers, said to be of great algebraic importance, on matrices; 

 a standard of length in terms of a light-wave one fifty- 

 thousandth of an inch long; a new method of greatly mag- 

 nifying the power of telescopes, so that poss|bly the disks of 

 fixed stars may be seen (a method speedily put in operation 

 by the Lick Observatory, with the largest telescope glass in 

 the world ) ; the electrical properties of the air, and a little 

 group of problems in meteorology; the embryology of an 

 animal peculiar to America, and of great importance to the 

 ancestry of vertebrate life; studies of sea-anemone and jelly- 

 fishes; the breeding-habits and embryology of the lobster, 

 strangely unknown before; a third fundamental tissue de- 

 termined for most organs in the vertebrate body; the discov- 

 ery of the innervation of veins; the comparative study of 

 organs of taste in many vertebrates; fatigue, studied experi- 

 mentally and also histologically, in the living cell; the brain 

 of the world-known deaf-mute, Laura Bridgman, more thor- 

 oughly studied than any brain ever before has been; the 

 time of the quickest mental and nerve processes; the sense 

 of rhythm, so fundamental to several arts; the myths, cus- 

 toms, and beliefs of the native Indian tribes of British Co- 

 lumbia, — all of these and half a dozen more of less signifi- 

 cance, some not yet completed, some already published in 

 several languages, represent some of our work here during 

 the past year, so important that if, instead of marking the 

 beginning of a second year with greater facilities and in- 

 creased numbers and zeal, this occasion marked the close of 

 the university, the sum of human knowledge would have 

 been larger for our having existed, and we should have our 

 place forever in the history of the advancement of science. 



" In addition to this, I do not here mention the marked 

 stimulus we have already exerted on other institutions. In 

 this new country we need new men, new measures, and oc- 

 casionally new universities; and we, like England, have in 

 later years experienced their amazing good. In the field of 

 experimental science, unlike some other departments, what 

 is there of importance, that a few centuries can afford, that 

 cannot be at least as well provided in a few years? A new 

 institution, in a time and place like the present, manned by 

 young men, ought to become a new movement. Many of 

 our problems are new in this country, and must be wrought 

 out slowly and in the light of all available experience and 

 wisdom. 



"Partly to aid ourselves in this work, as well as for our 



