14 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XI. No. 262. 



the functions of professor and presiding 

 officer. During the last 15 or 20 years the 

 relative imporfeance of the president has 

 been more marked, owing to the fact that 

 by the transformation of the older colleges 

 into universities the amount of administra- 

 tive work has been greatly increased, and 

 with it has come the increasing necessity of 

 depending more and more on the intelli- 

 gence and activity of a single mind as super- 

 visor and administrator. Furthermore, the 

 remarkable increase in the number of col- 

 leges and universities, none of them with 

 sufficient endowment to provide the elabo- 

 rate equipment and large body of instruc- 

 tors required in a modern university, has 

 brought about a competition between dif- 

 ferent institutions, each struggling to outdo 

 the others, so that the college president has 

 been forced to become a 'hustler,' to bor- 

 row an expression from the business world, 

 and he is obliged to see that his own insti- 

 tution is not outdone by others in the 

 scramble for private and public money to 

 cany on establishments requiring additional 

 sums for proper endowment. Whether we 

 like it or not, I think it will be admitted 

 that what I have described as peculiarly 

 the American system of university organiza- 

 tion is one which we must accept as un- 

 avoidable in this country, and there is no 

 probability that the system will be changed 

 essentially in a short time. That being 

 the case, it is our duty to adapt ourselves to 

 it and make the best possible use of it, not 

 expecting that we shall be able to copy 

 closely the systems of other countries ex- 

 cept in certain details, which, however, are 

 important. 



The great charm of the German univer- 

 sity hitherto has been what has been de- 

 scribed as the intellectual atmosphere, the 

 prevailing desire of pursuing learning and 

 investigation for their own sake, which, 

 however, does not unfit the Germans for 

 the successful application of science in in- 



dustrial and practical fields. We miss in 

 our own universities this universal desire 

 for investigation, which is with us confined 

 to a certain number of persons who are very 

 enthusiastic, to be sure, but are in most 

 cases obliged to justify themselves in the 

 eyes of those who do not understand the 

 value of investigation. 



Fashion and the natural tendency to imi- 

 tate others has, however, done very much 

 for us in recent years in aid of investiga- 

 tion, for, while it may be next to impossible 

 to induce the governing board of a uni- 

 versity to spend money on investigation for 

 its own sake, it is a comparatively easy 

 matter to convince them that they must 

 make provision for original work because 

 some other institution has done so and 

 is thereby attracting public attention. If 

 original research can be used as a means 

 for advertising a university, there is no 

 doubt that it will be encouraged, and, 

 fortunately, as it turns out, it is a very good 

 advertisement, even better than victories in 

 athletics. The really successful American 

 universities are those in which the most 

 original work is done. The trouble is that 

 if one looks upon research mainly as an 

 advertising medium, one is apt to demand 

 quantity rather than quality, and to regard 

 the number of papers published annually as 

 the standard of scientific activity. 



The pursuit of science for its own sake 

 which characterizes the German univer- 

 sities is one of the results of their form of 

 organization. The faculty, the learned 

 body, shape their own policy more than is 

 the case with us, and they recognize the 

 intrinsic value of research. With us it is 

 necessary, through the president, to con- 

 vince the corporation and trustees of its 

 value before much can be done, and they, 

 being for the greater part business men or 

 professional men, rather than scholars, are 

 apt to consider that research is valuable 

 only in so far as it is what they call prac- 



