T. U. TAYLOR — SCIENCE AND THE STATE. 
53 
nologv has no more consideration before the law than the man who starts 
in the field with no training whatever. Can the State afford, for its 
own protection, not to require some evidence of fitness on the part of 
those who would assist us in developing its resources. Again, there’s 
work to he done for agriculture as long as J ohnson grass flourishes, as long- 
as there are dead spots in cotton-fields, and the boll-worm and sharp- 
shooter play havoc with our crops; and were all these problems solved, 
the scientist would still have his hands full of practical problems. Sani- 
tary science is in its infancy. As long as any form of epidemic, he it 
cholera, yellow fever, or what not, is liable to cross our borders, the 
scientist stands ready to lay down his life for the protection of his fel- 
lows. Our own city has produced such men — men whose names are 
known to every one in this audience. The physician will yet pierce the 
armor of that giant evil of cholera and lay his head as a trophy at the 
feet of the people of the nation. Can a chivalrous people fail to furnish 
every aid for such work? It is a work for them, pure and simple, and 
not for personal glory, for the true scientist suffereth long and is kind. 
Hot only does every duty of the State dictate the fostering of science; 
not only does common gratitude for the blessings we have received dic- 
tate it, hut history tells us the fate of those that neglect such plain duty. 
As I remarked some moments ago, the State or nation that neglects this 
great factor in civilization will either die or fall to the rear. The great 
Hapoleon founded many universities in France, hut consolidated them 
into one imperial university, hut it soon lost its prestige and influence. 
At the same time the German nation was studding the land with uni- 
versities, and the German scientist was attracting and holding the at- 
tention of the scientific world. In the Franco-German war two armies 
met on the frontier of France, the one from the leading scientific nation 
of the world, the other from a nation that at least had not treated sci- 
ence as a favored child: the one composed in part of the spectacled Ger- 
man professors from the universities of Germany; and the result was that 
France surrendered the largest individual army that was ever surrendered 
in the history of the world. As soon as peace was declared the German 
planted a university in the ceded province of Alsace-Loraine. If the 
people of this province needed a university under the German crown, 
surrounded by the many universities of the German nation, they cer- 
tainly needed one while they were part of the French nation that was 
then poorly equipped with universities. But, as Playfair said, “Both 
France and Germany are now fully aware that science is the source of 
wealth and power, and that the only way of advancing it is to encourage 
universities to make researches and to spread existing knowledge through 
the community. Switzerland is a remarkable illustration of how a 
country can compensate itself for its natural advantages by a scientific 
