12 



SCIENCE. 



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



one tthould Bpeak of their merits or point 

 out their defectH. 



TriHtead of calling your attention to any 

 Hpecial phaae of botany I shall take the 

 liberty of presenting a few conBiderations 

 HuggcHted by a comparison of the different 

 methods of organization of universities and 

 other seientifie establishments in this coun- 

 try and in Europe. Such considerations, 

 although they apply to all advanced studies 

 and research, whether literary or scientific, 

 are not to be considered beyond our prov- 

 ince, for in more ways than may at first be 

 supposed there is a community of learning, 

 and any method or organization which 

 genuinely promotes one form of knowledge 

 tends to promote the study of other 

 branches. I say genuinely because I do not 

 Ijelieve that a system which professes to en- 

 courMge the exclusive study of one or a few 

 sulyects will in the end be successful. 



Although any organization may be better 

 than no organization at all, there is a pos- 

 sibility of pushing organization to an ex- 

 tr(!me, and, by putting too many wheels into 

 our educational clocks, produce a disastroue 

 amount of friction. Organization should 

 bo carried so far that the knowledge which 

 has been acquired slowly and laboriously 

 from experience and research is systema- 

 tized in such a way that the student may 

 bo ablo to learn all that is possible without 

 loss of time, and the investigator, well in- 

 formed as to what is already known, be able 

 to take up the thread of the unknown and 

 unravel it to the greatest advantage. When 

 organization goes so far as to dictate just 

 who should do certain things and to pre- 

 scribe stereotyped ways of work, it is always 

 disastrous. Since a good organization of 

 the forces at our command is probably the 

 itiostefTiciont means of securing steady prog- 

 ress in science, an examination of different 

 modes of organization should prove instruc- 

 tive. 



Without entering into the futile question 



of the relative inherent capacities of the 

 scientific men of different European nations, 

 it is safe to say that we should all agree 

 that, in point of scientific organization, the 

 German universities surpass all others. 

 Probably most of my hearers have, at some 

 time, pursued their studies in Europe, and, 

 if they have attended German universities 

 rather than those of other countries, it was 

 because they were convinced that, however 

 eminent individual professors might be 

 elsewhere, Germany was the place where 

 the university system would enable them 

 to obtain most readily the results of modern 

 science and to prepare themselves for in- 

 vestigation. Although we Americans are 

 supposed to have a sufficiently high opinion 

 of our own abilities and our own institu- 

 tions, it is certainly true that we are will- 

 ing to learn from other nations. A con- 

 siderable portion of the Americans who 

 have studied in Germany have on their re- 

 turn home a feeling that the German uni- 

 versity system is better than our own and 

 desire to introduce German methods, and 

 it is not necessary to remind you of the 

 great influence which such a feeling has 

 had on our own universities. Our social 

 and intellectual conditions, however, do 

 not permit us to transform our universities 

 completely into institutions like German 

 universities, and there has grown up with us 

 a system which is peculiarly American, of 

 which the full significance has in an im- 

 portant respect often been overlooked. 



AVhen one asks how our universities dif- 

 fer from those in Germany and other 

 European countries, the answer generally 

 given is that students who enter foreign 

 universities have had a more thorough pre- 

 liminary training than our own ; that the 

 instructors, taken as a whole, have a more 

 profound knowledge of their specialties ; 

 and that the equii)ment in the form of 

 libraries, laboratories and museums is more 

 complete than in this country. Were these 



