c 



G)mpUmentary Banquet to Ltither Burbank 



from the Hawaiian Islands to the Aleutian Islands, and north 

 of a line from the Hawaiian Islands to the mainland. There 

 is also being erected by the Institution a solar observatory 

 on Mount Wilson in Southern California, where the most 

 complete and powerful instruments known will be placed 

 in charge of the most skilled astronomers. The atmospheric 

 conditions on Mount Wilson are exceptionally favorable for 

 solar obsen^ations, and it is expected that many interesting 

 discoveries regarding the sun's heat and composition will be 

 made, and the field of astronomical research generally will 

 be greatly extended. In a word, the Carnegie Institution 

 is responding to the urgent demand for deeper and more ex- 

 tensive scientific knowledge, a demand which was vigorously 

 set forth recently in a lecture by Professor Lankester, an 

 English scientist of distinction, at Oxford, England. His 

 contention was that the knowledge and control of Nature is 

 man's destiny and his greatest need, and to accomplish that 

 destiny is the immediate task set before him. He said : 



"We desire to make the chief subject of education, both in 

 school and in college, a knowledge of Nature as set forth in 

 the sciences which are spoken of as physics, chemistry, geolog}' 

 and biolog}\ We think that all education should consist in 

 the first place of this kind of knowledge, on account of its 

 commanding importance both to the individual and to the 

 communit}'. We think that every man of even a moderate 

 amount of education should have acquired a sufficient know^- 

 ledge of these subjects to enable him at any rate to appreciate 

 their value and to take an interest in their progress and ap- 

 plication to human life. And we think, further, that the 

 ablest youth of the country should be encouraged to proceed 

 to the extreme limit of present knowledge in one or other 

 branch of this knowledge of Nature, so as to become makers 



, , 33 . . 



