58 



SCIENCE. 



[X. S. Vol. XL No. 263. 



become the duty of the leading institutions 

 of learning to contribute to the advanee- 

 meni of the boundaries of knowledge, the 

 pedagogical motive will never lose its perti- 

 nence. But whether for the strengthening 

 of its internal educational structure, or as a 

 proper expansion of the university sphere 

 of influence, there will always remain a 

 close community of method and interest in 

 all provision for research. That community 

 is the furtherance of the investigative spirit. 

 Fruitful investigation flourishes only in a 

 proper soil and blossoms profusely only in 

 a congenial atmosphere. One cannot have 

 investigation without investigators ; in some 

 directions money may^ provide the materials, 

 for the lack of which investigation must go 

 halting, but in all directions investigators 

 must be both born and trained. The in- 

 spiring intellectual life of our foremost uni- 

 versities certainly offers a most congenial 

 atmosphere for the growth of that investi- 

 gative spirit ; the furtherance of that spirit 

 is an indispensable factor in a worthy na- 

 tional and cultural progress. 



It thus becomes not a supplementary 

 duty but the very purpose of the university 

 to provide an environment so thoroughly 

 suited to the growth of investigation that 

 it cannot but become its natural habitat. 

 Research is indispensable to a university, 

 says President Eliot, " because a university 

 which is not a place of research will not 

 long continue to be a good place of teach- 

 ing ; and, secondly, because this incessant, 

 quiet, single-minded search after new truth 

 is the condition of both material and intel- 

 lectual progress for the nation and for the 

 race." 



It will be well to examine somewhat more 

 closely the two aspects of investigation 

 which I have selected for special emphasis 

 — investigation for training and investiga- 

 tion for discove^J^ The working ideal of 

 American universities is to provide their 

 students with the maximum opportunities 



and privileges of which their degree of ma- 

 turitj' and responsibility enables them to 

 profit ; and at the same time we continue 

 the guidance of their progress in ever more 

 indirect but no less efficient manner, until 

 they strike out confidently, and as a rule 

 creditabh^ in their chosen walks of life. 

 We have not been teinpted to imitate the 

 German system which makes the passage 

 from gymnasium to university an abrupt 

 change from set tasks and stringent disci- 

 pline to complete liberty with little guidance 

 and no control. While it is proper that con- 

 ventional ceremonies and new privileges 

 should add zest to the assumption of the 

 toga virilis, it is not proper that mistakes 

 should be encouraged, nor that, for lack of 

 a gradual transition, time and energy and 

 strength should go astray. Men and 

 women should have the liberty of making 

 mistakes ; there is a very real danger in 

 over-guidance as well as in license. Biit 

 the golden mean between these, though a 

 narrow path, is broad enough to be readily 

 found. 



In the ideal which American universities 

 attempt to realize, there are to be guide- 

 posts enough to give the young explorer a' 

 confident feeling that others have trod the 

 path before him, and to prevent useless 

 wanderings into by-paths and cuh-cle-sae, 

 and yet not enough to take away the in- 

 centive of independence and adventure, 

 nor to lose the slightest opportunity to 

 foster self-reliance and courage. It is 

 necessary to understand this ideal and the 

 consequent attitude of both guide and 

 guided to appreciate the function in the 

 university of investigation for training. 

 For it seems to me that no other aspect of 

 university studies can so readily be adapted 

 to this ideal as the investigative aspect. I 

 mean by this not merely the one topic that 

 forms the basis of a thesis (which in the 

 nature of things must often be quite de- 

 tailed and not comprehensively significant) ; 



