PRODUCTIVE SCHOLARSHIP 60 1 



upon its scholarship, its leisure and its devotion to the greatest good of 

 its own people, is the least productive of creative work — in some of the 

 more important sciences even practically sterile. 



Here then, in the south, that cause, whatever it is, has its greatest 

 influence, and can therefore the more certainly be determined. Surely 

 though, this mortifying, this deplorable state of affairs does not have to 

 exist, for the south long ago showed her ability in meeting and master- 

 ing great political, military, and judicial problems, and she has to-day 

 as splendid a class of people, as earnest, as capable, as sensitive and as 

 self sacrificing as has any country on the face of the earth, the very 

 qualities essential to scientific achievements. "Why then do her people 

 accomplish so little of this kind of work, and why have they no voice in 

 the councils of our national scientific societies ? 



But first to show that these statements are true. In Science for 

 December 18, 1908, is given the names of the presidents and secretaries 

 for the Baltimore meetings of a number of scientific organizations — 

 the American Association for the Advancement of Science, its several 

 sections, and twenty-four other societies — in all, seventy-eight names, 

 and just one is from south of the Potomac and the Ohio. Even the 

 Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology was officered by men 

 from north of the Potomac. Surely then the voice of the south is faint 

 in the councils of our scientific organizations ; nor has she even a single 

 representative in the whole of the National Academy. But this is not 

 intended in the least as a criticism of any of these societies or of the 

 excellent men they have chosen to represent them. It is a simple state- 

 ment of the facts, so astonishing, however, that if generally realized 

 they could not help arousing that healthy determination that leads to 

 better things. 



During the past twelve years the author has had the pleasure of at- 

 tending many of the meetings of the American Association for the 

 Advancement of Science, sections A and B, of the American Physical 

 Society and of the Astronomical and Astrophysical Society of America, 

 but in all this time, except for an occasional contribution from one uni- 

 versity, rarely ever heard a paper that was written in what are known 

 as the southern states. He has repeatedly heard papers, often excellent 

 ones, written at northern universities by men of southern birth, but 

 seldom, if ever, a paper by a northern man in a southern university. 



This great inequality, even when the men are the same, in productive 

 scholarship between the northern and the southern parts of our country 

 can have but one explanation — difference in environment ; and it ex- 

 plains too the inferior part we as a nation are taking in preparing the 

 way for any real advance in civilization. 



It is the stimulus of his environment, as every creative scholar 

 knows, that is chiefly responsible for the quantity and even in large 



VOL. lxxv. — 40. 



