346 The American Naturalist. [April, 
Although many facts of detail are known, few general laws are fully 
established, and fewer are fully understood. Before we shall grasp the 
laws of nature, much research will be necessary. The unexpected 
character of some modern discoveries furnishes ample evidence that - 
research is the only key to knowledge, and that until our hypotheses 
have the support of abundant facts we must not value them too highly. 
An illustration of the failure of speculation to anticipate discovery, is 
the knowledge that various growth functions are carried on by free 
and wandering cells, who act as carriers of substances to and from 
tissues. Research in all directions in fact, meets with such reward 
that it should be sustained by all persons who desire to encourage the 
progress of knowledge. But the rich men of our country do not dis- 
criminate between this function or that of teaching. They found Uni- 
versities with praiseworthy and princely liberality, but research has to 
struggle with poverty of means and deficiency of time. Great libra- 
ries are founded, but the work in the laboratory from which issue the 
books which create libraries, receives comparatively little substantial 
encouragement. It is also the fact that the general public does not 
discriminate between the distributor and the producer of knowledge 
The compiler is often mistaken for the discoverer. The education 
offered in our Universities will correct this in many minds, and then 
later other facts will have to be understood. This is, that the mental 
peculiarity which belongs tothe discoverer, is not a general one. Every 
naturalist of long experience will recall the numbers of men who have 
entered this field to leave it. Men who take a course in a foreign 
University and write an original thesis for a degree, frequently never 
make another contribution to science. These are not the men to 
endow as original investigators. The combination of good sense-percep- 
tion with memory and systematic skill, along with perseverance and 
the comprehension of ways and means, with an idealism which justi- 
fies the end in view, is not very common ; and presumably, when pres- 
ent, is often suppressed by adverse circumstances of life. Initiative 
and discovery are the condition of progress, and no better service could 
be rendered to humanity than the creation of opportunities for their 
activity. 
One of the principal fields of future discovery is the Antarctic con- 
tinent. No one has approached nearer to the South Pole than 65° S. 
so that the unexplored region is at its narrowest point greater in width 
than the continent of North America. While the possibilities of botani- 
cal and zoological discovery in such a region, under the rigorous 
