SCIENCE. 



AN ILLUSTRATED JOURNAL PUBLISHED YIEEKLY. 



Verite sans ^enr. 



CAMBRIDGE, MASS.: THE SCIENCE COMPANY. 



FRIDAY, JULY 3, 1885. 



COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 



It MAT NOW BE SAID to be the fashion for 

 individuals of great wealth to make bequests 

 to found new institutions of learning, or in 

 general to help on such institutions alread}^ in 

 existence, and in particular to endow specific 

 departments of research. But it is much more 

 than a fashion. We ma}" presume that those 

 making such bequests desire, in large majorit}', 

 that the greatest good shall come from their 

 gifts — if not in the advancement of knowl- 

 edge, then in its diffusion among men. To be 

 sure, we have man}' princeh' donations nowa- 

 days, which, while they provide for the worthi- 

 est of objects, are paraded in the public prints 

 as if ephemeral notoriety were all the donor 

 thought of. But this sort of bequest is grow- 

 ing iucreasingl}' less, and the ultimate substan- 

 tial good is coming to be regarded uppermost. 



It is indicative of a solid growth in our 

 country, that an increasing proportion of its 

 wealth is turned into the channels of education 

 and science. What it took European nations 

 hundreds of years to find out, the shrewdest 

 of our public benefactors are fnWy aware of, — 

 that no earthly institutions are so stable and 

 enduring as the great colleges and universities ; 

 that solid endowments in these institutions 

 have a lease of life which not even nations 

 themselves can be sure of; and that funds 

 thus deposited preserve their integrity when 

 other forms of investment undergo complete 

 dissipation. The chief institutions of higher 

 education in America have an excellent record 

 to exhibit in the management of the funds in- 



No. 126. — 1885. 



trusted to their guardianship. They are not 

 thought of ordinarily as at all different from 

 other institutions and corporations which exist 

 solel}^ for self-remunerative interest. No col- 

 lege or universit}' exists to make mone}'. The 

 income of such institutions is very largely 

 derived from funds which have been given to 

 them ; and while fees are received, and make 

 up a part of the income, the}" expend all they 

 receive, as a rule, and only hope to recei^•e 

 more that they may give more. So, also, it is 

 with all departments and organizations for sci- 

 entific research. 



' The more one has, the more one receives,' 

 seems to be exemplified in the finances of our 

 greatest university, the observatory of which has 

 just received a bequest of nearly three hundred 

 thousand dollars from the will of the late Mr. 

 Robert Treat Paine of Brookline, Mass. The 

 observatory receives one-half of this amount 

 at once, — a sum large enough to enable the 

 early resumption of the important researches 

 which, through lack of funds, it became neces- 

 sary to discontinue at the close of last year, — 

 the remainder on the death of his widow. Mr. 

 Paine died recently, at the advanced age of 

 eighty-one years. Although not a professional 

 astronomer, he was well known to all the 

 astronomers of the present generation. His 

 immediate contemporaries in the science have 

 all, we believe, passed away. Mr. Paine took 

 special interest in the prediction and obser- 

 vation of solar and lunar eclipses ; and the 

 persistency with which he followed these phe- 

 nomena, even in late years, makes it probable 

 that he had observed more eclipses than any 

 other person. Also he made meteorological 

 observations of great value ; and his record 

 of barometric and thermometric readings at a 



