July 26, 1901.] 



SCIENCE. 



141 



modynamic values ; to measure beds of 

 cement and quarries of stone and try their 

 quality ; to collect flora, fauna, rocks and 

 minerals ; and for other useful purposes. 

 The results, carefully tabulated, have been 

 widely distributed. Diseases of animals 

 and plants have been held firmly in check. 

 What has been done shows what may be 

 done for things material by the scientific 

 skill of universities. But what has been 

 accomplished has been mainly along the 

 paths prescribed by the United States, in 

 the Hatch Act, establishing Agricultural 

 Experiment Stations. Except under fed- 

 eral leadership, our universities have not 

 done very much, I fear, for the material 

 welfare of the people, when one considers 

 the immense possibilities. 



6. In collaboration with State boards, bu- 

 reaus and commissions, the university 

 should look after social and economic con- 

 ditions. 



How many States can point with pride to 

 their penal institutions — their jails, peni- 

 tentiaries, reformatories, almshouses, tene- 

 ment houses and asylums? Yet the uni- 

 versity of each commonwealth perhaps 

 maintains a chair of sociology. On the 

 campus are students from every county. 

 In their summer vacations they could visit 

 every reformatory and eleemosynary insti- 

 tution, reporting accurately its condition. 

 A judicious publication of the results, with 

 a statement of fundamental principles, 

 would lead often to radical reforms in the 

 treatment of the criminal and defective 

 classes. 



No State is without municipal problems 

 and few can boast of a rational system of 

 taxation. Why should not the department 

 of economics take up these subjects? If 

 the professors understand what scientific 

 taxation is, why can they not apply it 

 wisely to prevailing conditions ? The wisest 

 teaching of political economy in municipal 

 problems should be spread broadcast. The 



Federal Government maintains in every 

 commonwealth an Experiment Station to 

 find out what is wise in agriculture and to 

 disseminate among the people the knowl- 

 edge gathered. The departments of so- 

 ciology and political economy ought to be 

 experiment stations after their kind in the 

 full meaning of the Federal Government, 

 and the university should not begrudge the 

 cost of publishing and distributing among 

 the people w^hatever information may be 

 necessary to enable them to adjust wisely 

 their systems of taxation, to solve municipal 

 problems, and to improve the condition of 

 their penal institutions, reformatories, asy- 

 lums, almshouses, tenement houses, etc. 

 It is the function of a university to investi- 

 gate, to teach and to publish. 



A painstaking study of the State laws, in 

 the light of the broadest learning and in 

 comparison with other codes, if embodied 

 in timely publications and spread broad- 

 cast, would not be without good results 

 anywhere. The achievements of David 

 Dudley Field in this direction are well 

 known. 



The early history and archeology of 

 every State is an inviting field for investi- 

 gation, while the editing of early local 

 writers of the better sort might well employ 

 some of the literary skill of the faculty. A 

 spicelegium in some cases it might be, but in 

 every case it would be valuable. 



The departments of chemistrj'^, sanitary 

 engineering and medicine find a wide field 

 of usefulness in things pertaining to public 

 health : pure foods and drugs, pure water, 

 good sewers, the ventilation of buildings 

 and so on. In this broad direction it is 

 possible by scientific work and by helpful 

 publications to diminish sensibly the rate 

 of sickness and of death. 



e. In cooperation with boards of edu- 

 cation and the State Superintendent the 

 university should build up the schools 

 below it. 



