SCIENCE. 



FRIDAY. APRIL 32, 1887. 



COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 



The American association for the advance- 

 ment of science has decided to hold its thirty-sixth 

 meeting in Ne^v York City during the week be- 

 ginning Awg. 10, 1887. It therefore becomes the 

 duty and privilege of the scientific and educational 

 institutions of the city and vicinity to provide for 

 the meeting in a manner which shall be creditable 

 alike to themselves and to the metropolis. The 

 Academy of sciences, having been asked to take 

 the initiative in the matter, has appointed a com. 

 mittee of conference to secure concert of action 

 among the several institutions. A meeting will 

 be held at the Hotel Brunswick, at 8 o'clock, on 

 the evening of Friday, April 29. The special work 

 before this conference will be the consideration of 

 ways and means, and the formation of permanent 

 committees, which, united, shall constitute a local 

 committee for the meeting of the association. 

 This great national gathering of scientists will be 

 an important event in the history of onr city, and 

 should mark an epoch in the development of 

 scientific interest in the community. It is highly 

 desirable, therefore, that the association should 

 find a cordial welcome, and should receive a kind 

 and degree of interest and hospitality worthy of 

 the great metropolis. 



The centennial anniversary which Columbia 

 celebrated last week, following so closely Har- 

 vard's two hundred and fiftieth birthday, is signifi- 

 cant of the fact that our larger institutions of 

 learning are growing old. They are evidences of 

 the wisdom of their founders, who, amid all the 

 turmoil and care of opening up a new country to 

 civilization and of developing fitting forms of 

 government, found time to lay the foundations 

 for what have since become the leading colleges 

 and universities of the country. Columbia's cen- 

 tennial was more or less fictitious, since the origi- 

 nal charter to King's college bore the date 1754 ; 

 and the annual commencement in June next is 

 the one hundred and thirty-third. The cele- 

 bration was really, as the official bulletin an- 

 nounced, of the hundredth anniversary of the 

 No. 220 — 1887. 



"revival and confirmation of the original char- 

 ter by the legislature of the state of New York." 

 There is much in Columbia's history and in its 

 personal associations to make it peculiarly the 

 college of the city of New York. As Mr. Coudert 

 pointed out in his admirable oration, Columbia has 

 grown with the city's growth, and flourished with 

 the city's prosperity. The prominent men of New 

 York, from Alexander Hamilton and John Jay and 

 DeWitt Chnton to Hewitt and Dix and Agnew 

 and Woodford, are numbered among its alumni. 

 Its influence, though ultra-conservative, has been, 

 on the whole, for good. Under the enlightened 

 presidency of Dr. Barnard, the policy of the col- 

 lege has become more liberal and aggressive, and 

 to-day it is doing far more for the community 

 than it has ever done before. 



Having come so far and done so much, the 

 question is naturally raised as to its future devel- 

 opment. The public press is urging that the col- 

 lege, with its associated schools of applied science, 

 of medicine, of law, and of political science, 

 should organize itself into a genuine university, 

 and offer those opportunities for advanced in- 

 struction and research which its faculties and its 

 situation are so well fitted to provide. The very 

 obvious answer to this is that such a scheme 

 requires large amounts of money : and Colum- 

 bia has in the past been the recipient of almost 

 nothing, while Harvard, Cornell, and Prince- 

 ton have had gifts in abundance showered upon 

 them. Columbia is struggling under a heavy 

 debt, and, until that is removed, entrance upon a 

 university career is impossible. Furthermore, its 

 equipment is far from complete. It needs a 

 physical and a biological laboratory, a depart- 

 ment of comparative philology, additional pro- 

 vision for historical science, an enlargement of 

 the ludicrously small philosophical department, 

 and, more than all, a library fund which will 

 provide for the book purchases that ought to be 

 made. All these are things not known, perhaps, 

 to those who are clamoring for a university, that 

 serve as an effectual barrier to university develop- 

 ment. They are details well known to Columbia's 

 management and alumni, but only made public 

 by the discussions consequent upon the recent 



