ANNUAL ADDRESS. 189 



intense competition among our institutions requires that profes- 

 sors be magnetic teachers, thorough scholars, acti\'e in social 

 work, and given to frequent publication, that being prominent 

 they may be living advertisements of the institution. How 

 much time, opportunity or energy remains for patient investiga- 

 tion some may be able to imagine. 



The misconception respecting the relative importance of in- 

 vestigation is increased by the failure of even well-educated men 

 to appreciate the changed conditions in science. The ordinary 

 notion of scientific ability is expressed in the popular saying that 

 a competent surgeon can saw a bone with a butcher knife and 

 carve a muscle with a handsaw. Once, indeed, the physicist 

 needed little aside from a spirit lamp, test tubes and some plati- 

 num wire or foil ; low power microscopes, small reflecting tele- 

 scopes, rude balances and home-made apparatus certainly did 

 wonderful service in their day ; there was a time when the finder 

 of a mineral or fossil felt justified in regarding it as new and in 

 describing it as such, when a psychologist needed only his own 

 great self as a basis for broad conclusions respecting all man- 

 kind. All of that belonged to the infancy of science, when 

 little was known and any observation was liable to be a discov- 

 ery, when a Humboldt, an Arago or an Agassiz was possible. 

 But all is changed ; workers are multiplied in every land ; study 

 in every direction is specialized; men have ceased the mere gath- 

 ering of facts and have turned to the determination of relations. 

 Long years of preparation are needed to fit one to begin investi- 

 gation ; familiarity with several languages is demanded ; great 

 libraries are necessary for constant reference, and costly apparatus 

 is essential even for preliminary examination. Where tens of 

 -dollars once supplied the equipment in any branch of science, 

 hundreds, yes thousands, of dollars are required now. 



Failure to appreciate the changed conditions induces neglect 

 to render proper assistance. As matters now stand, even the 

 wealthiest of our educational institutions cannot be expected to 

 -carry the whole burden, for endowments are insufficient to meet 

 the too rapidly increasing demand for wider range of instruction. 

 It is unjust to expect that men, weighted more and more by the 



