164 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XX. No. 501. 



people in the midst of practical life which 

 it has ever been my privilege to Mdtness. 



If the state educates an engineer, it 

 promotes the common safety, which is 

 threatened by an ever-increasing multitude 

 of new contingencies springing from new 

 devices in construction, transportation, 

 sanitation, electric lighting, et cetera. But 

 if the state creates and spreads broadcast 

 engineering science, it makes protective in- 

 telligence more nearly a common possession, 

 and lays the groundwork for universal cau- 

 tion and for intelligent watch over every 

 one who holds the power of life and death 

 in his hands. The supreme function of 

 the state's college of engineering is rather 

 the creation and dissemination of engineer- 

 ing science than the personal training of a 

 technologist. 



If the state educates a physician, it con- 

 fers a benefit on the commonwealth by so 

 much as he contributes locally to the public 

 health. But if the state investigates the 

 cause of disease and the mode of prevention 

 and cure, and propagates the results, every 

 citizen, directly or indirectly, becomes a 

 beneficiary, and the interests of the whole 

 people are conserved. 



Doubtless it is a proper function of the 

 state university to train lawyers, for their 

 public service is indispensable, but it is a 

 higher function to develop the science of 

 law-making. The subject matter now 

 taught relates chiefly to the application and 

 consequences of laws already enacted, and 

 especially to the litigation that springs 

 from their obscurities or defects. Should 

 not the chief effort lie back of this in inves- 

 tigation precedent to law-making? With 

 suitable provisions, the history of every law 

 passed by the legislature may be traced by 

 the methods of historical science, its. work- 

 ings measured with approximate acci;racy, 

 and its adaptation to its purpose scien- 

 tifically determined. Similar determina- 

 tions in other commonwealths are equally 



possible. Comparison between these, when 

 sufficiently multiplied and critically dis- 

 cussed, should give a basis for determining 

 the best mode of legislative treatment with 

 something of the confidence that clinical rec- 

 ords give to surgical or pathological treat- 

 ment. The important function of law-mak- 

 ing may be subjected to the same anteced- 

 ent processes of scientific inquiry, of judi- 

 cial induction, and of intellectual caution 

 and equipoise that obtain in medicine, me- 

 chanics or agriculture. This may at pres- 

 ent seem Utopian because of regnant prac- 

 tise and prepossession to the contrary, but, 

 given the same patience and ingenuity, why 

 may we not treat the history of laws in the 

 same critical, deliberate way that the sci- 

 entific pathologist treats the history of dis- 

 ease, or the scientific surgeon the history 

 of an operation ? It will not be denied that 

 if the modes of scientific research controlled 

 this field, so especially the function of the 

 state, it would be as beneficent in its sphere 

 as scientific pathology is in its realm, or 

 the high art of surgery in its field. Be- 

 yond this historical treatment, there is the 

 great untouched field of systematic experi- 

 mentation in legislation under scientific 

 co7itrol— hut the next speakers would have 

 good cause for action at court if I entered 

 on this untrodden field. 



These citations are merely illustrative se- 

 lections. Research in every realm of a 

 people's legitimate interests is an appro- 

 priate function of the people's organized 

 self, the state, and of the people 's organized 

 instrument of research, the state university. 



The people of Wisconsin are to be con- 

 gratulated on the important initial steps 

 already taken by their university towards 

 the fulfillment of its higher sphere. They 

 are to be warmly felicitated on the larger 

 effort upon which the new administration 

 of the university has already entered with 

 so much of vigor and enthusiasm. They 

 are to be congratulated on the acknowl- 



