464 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. VI., No. 147. 



a small island in 83° 24' [N. Lat.] and 44° .05' 

 [W. Gr.]. Dr. Pavy and another went a short 

 distance beyond the winter quarters of the Alert, 

 and a trip was made into the interior of Grinnell 

 Land. But all this region had been explored and 

 exhaustively examined by the English expedition 

 in 1875-76." The italics are our own. Attention 

 has recently been called to this statement by the 

 author, Charles Lanman, of a little memorial vol- 

 ume on the life and arctic work of Lieut. James 

 B. Lock wood. 



It appears certainly most astonishing that a 

 writer on geographical subjects, especially those 

 relating to the arctic regions, should allow haste, 

 international feeling, or any other impulse, to lead 

 him to make a statement in an authoritative publi- 

 cation which is not only untrue, but unjust in the 

 highest degree to an explorer who died of priva- 

 tion in the very field of his labors. No explana- 

 tion seems possible. It has long been a matter of 

 record that Lock wood's farthest was not only the 

 highest latitude reached by civilized man, but 

 more than one hundred geographical miles in a 

 direct line beyond Beaumont's farthest, and that 

 the English expedition neither mapped nor • ex- 

 plored and exhaustively examined ' that part of 

 the Greenland coast, nor the interior of Grinnell 

 Land westward from Lady Franklin Bay and 

 Archer fiord. It would seem a duty for the pub- 

 lishers, in another volume of the encyclopaedia, to 

 place on record some disclaimer of this falsification 

 of history. 



The American economic association, which 

 was recently organized at Saratoga, is represented 

 as obtaining hearty support and co-operation, not 

 only from professional students in political econ- 

 omy, but also from business men, who take a wide 

 interest in the financial and industrial questions of 

 the day. Among its members there are already 

 professors representing more than a score of 

 colleges and universities in all parts of the coimtry, 

 several college presidents, lawyers, editors of some 

 of the most influential journals in the country, 

 and a large number of clergymen, among whom 

 may be named Dr. Barrows and Newman Smytlie, 

 not to mention Dr. Gladden and Lyman Abbot, 

 w^ho are actively engaged in the council of the 

 association. Leading manufacturers are interested 

 in its success, one of whom employs several thou- 

 sand working-people, and another has more than 

 a thousand names on his pay-roUs. The spirit of 



this broad and diversified support is well expressed 

 in a letter from Dr. Elisha Mulford, the author of 

 *The nation,' in which he remarks that "in the 

 transitions of human thought none has been more 

 significant than the humanization of political 

 economy." Committees are being organized for 

 investigation on the co-operative plan. Under 

 the leadership of Dr. Henry C. Adams, of the 

 university at Ann Arbor, the committee on muni- 

 cipal finance is engaged in the special considera- 

 tion of productive city property. It is collecting 

 information concerning the relations of American 

 municipahties to corporate institutions, such as 

 railways, telephone lines, gas and water works, in 

 order to determine the nature of the franchises 

 which have been so freely bestowed by our cities. 

 It will seek to learn, for instance, in what way 

 rates of lighting-companies are controlled, and if 

 any attempt is made to raise revenues from such 

 institutions. This strikingly resembles the system 

 of Le Play, and is thoroughly scientific in method. 

 By such means an immense amount of economic 

 data can be collected and synthesized in the light 

 of economic science. 



Those who are anxious to draw attention to 

 themselves as claiming possible consideration from 

 other scientific men too frequently have recourse 

 to the use of aU the titles which by accident or 

 otherwise may have fallen to them. This tendency 

 appears to have increased somewhat of late years, 

 and, so far as this country is concerned, is doubt- 

 less an importation from Europe. It is, neverthe- 

 less, a tendency which should be deprecated. 

 Aside from the very bad taste which it usually 

 reveals, the indiscriminate use of all the titles 

 which a man may possess, argues, in the first in- 

 stance, a weakness which is thereby confessed to 

 his scientific confreres. That titles have a definite 

 value when properly used cannot be denied, and 

 their attachment to a name on a business-card or 

 in official correspondence is quite allowable ; but 

 even then, unless in exceptional cases, they should 

 be reduced to the lowest terms consistent with the 

 object in view. On the other hand, for one to go 

 beyond his coUege and university degrees, and 

 append the initials of all the scientific societies of 

 which he may have become a member, savors 

 of the methods adopted by the sciolist to gain 

 cheap reputation. The modesty which usually 

 characterizes true merit always shrinks from 

 an undue display of the rewards which may 

 have fallen to it. 



