122 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. VII., No. 157 



man (after years of careful study of university 

 education, and a critical inspection of every impor- 

 tant university in the world) and received but few 

 modifications, as the result of its successive rounds, 

 it was prepared by authority of tie national associa- 

 tion, and also embodied the consensus of a still larger 

 number of persons deeply interested in the effort 

 thus made to advance the interests of university 

 education in America. Tn a word, it was a bill 

 authorized and practically approved by the national 

 association, and no amount of pettifogging - can efface 

 the record of the almost unprecedented unanimity 

 with which it was so authorized and approved. 



3. Again : nothing could be more astonishinglv 

 false than the statement that "neither bill [the one 

 under consideration and another one presented dur- 

 ing the same session of congress] was supported by 

 anybody in any way." For the records of the house 

 of representatives will show that the bill matured by 

 the national university committee was not only fully 

 considered by the committee on education and labor 

 of that honorable body, but was at length reported 

 in a strong and able manner with the unanimous 

 recommendation that it pass, as will appear from the 

 concluding passage of the report as published by the 

 house : — 



''If, then, it be true, as the committee have briefly 

 endeavored to show, that our country is at present 

 wanting in the facilities for the highest culture in 

 many departments of learning ; and if it be true that 

 a central university, besides meeting this demand, 

 would quicken, strengthen, and systematize the schools 

 of the country from the lowest to the highest ; that 

 it would increase the amount and the love of pure 

 learning, now too little appreciated by our people, 

 and so improve the intellectual and social status of 

 the nation ; that it would tend to homogeneity of 

 sentiment, and thus strengthen the unity and 

 patriotism of the people ; that by gathering at its 

 seat distinguished savants, not only of our own but 

 other lands, it would eventually make of our national 

 capital the intellectual centre of the world, and so 

 help the United States of America to rank first and 

 highest among the enlightened nations of the earth, — 

 then is it most manifestly the duty of congress to 

 establish and amply eradow such a university at the 

 earliest possible day. 



" The committee therefore affirm their approval 

 of the bill, and recommend its passage by the house." 



4. Last of all, I call attention to the sublime self- 

 complacency with which, in the face of all his super- 

 ficialitv of inquiry and flippancy of statement, the 

 writer under notice deals with the able and learned 

 secretary of the interior and with the merits of the 

 national university question ; telling us gravely, as 

 a final settlement of the whole matter, that. " by all 

 the would-be benefactors of American education, 

 many of the difficulties in the way of establishing a 

 national university have been overlooked." And 

 this the dictum of a writer who, in a discussion 

 involving matters of personal justice as well as of 

 public interest, has been content to rely on ex-parte 

 testimony, — this his ex- cathedra, condemnation of a 

 proposition first made by Washington, afterwards 

 supported by a number of his most distinguished 

 successors in the presidential office, and still more 

 recently approved by such statesmen as Sumner, 

 Howe, Schurz, Hoar, lngalls, and Lamar ; by such 

 men of science as Agassiz, Peirce, Shaler, Henry, 

 and Baird ; by the heads of nearly all the univer- 



sities of the United States ; and by the largest asso- 

 ciation of educators in the world. 



After this extraordinary manifestation, it does 

 not seem worth while to descant upon our critic's 

 notions concerning the evils of ' free education ' and 

 of what he is pleased to call ' the paternal govern- 

 ment.' The demonstration of their unsoundness has 

 been so often made, in the past, by educators who 

 are indeed leaders, that it need not be repeated, 

 unless there should at length appear some real 

 ' leader of education ' bold enough to express like 

 ' un American principles.' Up to this time, so far 

 as I know, but one man in the United States, 

 especially entitled by his position to be heard on the 

 subject of a national university, has declared against 

 the measure. Nor is it easy to see why any liberal- 

 minded friend of American education should oppose 

 the general proposition to found and amply endow 

 one great institution for post graduate work, planted 

 in the midst of the many important scientific estab- 

 lishments, as well as libraries, provided by the gov- 

 ernment, and so planned as to sustain helpful rela- 

 tions to all the universities, colleges, and common 

 schools of the country. John W. Hoyt. 



Cheyenne, W. T., Jan. 11. 



Temperature of the moon. 



My first communication on the temperature of the 

 moon was regarded as supplementary and confirma- 

 tory, and not controversial ; my second one, as a 

 correction of an erroneous view of my position too 

 hastily formed. Something further here seems 

 necessary with regard to my ' hypothetical moon,' 

 ' an absolutely airless body ' with 1 equal relative 

 radiating and absorbing powers,' and the ' endless 

 list of limitations.' Unfortunately this is a subject, 

 in whatever way we look at it, in which hypotheses 

 not altogether certain have to be adopted, and in 

 which we have to be satisfied with approximate re- 

 sults, subject to limitations. But my hypothetical 

 moon is very much like the real moon as it has come 

 to me from physicists and astronomers. More than 

 a quarter of a century ago, Stewart established the 

 equality of the radiating and absorbing powers for 

 each kind of heat-ray, and so, of course, for all col- 

 lectively. But this was from experiments in which 

 there was not much difference between the temper- 

 ature of the absorbing body and the body from which 

 the heat was radiated ; and this law has been ex- 

 tended, without sufficient warrant, to all cases, how- 

 ever great this difference of temperature. Professor 

 Tait, less than two years since (' Heat,' 1884), in giv- 

 ing the usual definition of the equality of radiating 

 and absorbing powers, adds the conditions of a dark 

 body aud of equality of temperatures, but imme- 

 diately after adds, '* We assume, with probability, 

 that these latter conditions are not necessary." 



In my paper on the * Temperature of the atmos- 

 phere and the earth's surface ' (Professional paper of 

 the signal-service, No. 13), I thought it best to make 

 a distinction between the heat received from the 

 sun and that from terrestrial bodies of ordinary 

 temperature. This was suggested by experiments 

 made by De la Provostage and Desains, from which 

 it appeared that polished metals reflected more, and 

 consequently absorbed less, of the heat received from 

 the sun, than from a Locatelli lamp. Accordingly? 

 throughout that paper, a is used to represent the 

 absorbing power of a body for heat from terrestrial 



