SPECIALIZATION IN NATURAL SCIENCE. 



AN ADDEESS DELIVERED BEFORE VASSAR 



BROTHERS INSTITUUE. 



October 9, 1883. 



BY PROF. W. B. DWIGHT, CHAIRMAN OF THE SCIENTIFIC SECTION. 



I am called upon officially this evening to say some- 

 thing appropriate to a general audience, and to Vassar 

 Brothers Institute as a whole, while yet addressing my- 

 self more especially to the Scientific Section. The sub- 

 ject which I have chosen, as well adapted for this pur- 

 pose, is "Specialization in Natural Science." I shall 

 endeavor to assist in establishing a clear, popular appre- 

 hension as to the character, extent, and necessity of such 

 specialization, and also to show its bearings upon the 

 work of a scientific society. 



The work of the specialist in science, as the term is 

 understood to-day, is quite a modern one. During all 

 the earlier ages of history, the divisions of scientific 

 work were mainly the broad, general divisions of science 

 itself, and so few, comparatively, were the facts and 

 principles for a long time recognized in the various 

 sciences,' that it was then not difficult for men of strong 

 minds to be masters, not only of a complete grand divi- 

 sion of science, but also of several distinct sciences ; but 

 we may go beyond this, and say that one or more 

 sciences were often merely appendages to the varied 

 acquisitions of the master-minds of those days. 



Thus we recall the names of Pythagoras, Thales of 

 Miletus, Hipparchus and Ptolemy, and, later, Copernicus, 

 and others, as astronomers and physicists, of Geber in 

 the eighth century of the Christian era as chemist, of 



