Annual Address by the President. 
5 
of knowledge, rejecting nothing because an immediate material use is not 
apparent, well knowing that in the light of future discoveries and appli- 
cations some value will always attach to any facts that lead to a better 
understanding of nature’s truths. Even though no economic use may 
ever arise such knowledge has a tangible value if it in any way broadens 
man’s understanding. Applied science also understands and appreciates 
this. 
In order that a people may take their proper place among the nations 
of earth something more than the mere accumulation and hoarding of 
knowledge is necessary. India and China have been the storehouses of 
the accumulated knowledge of the centuries, yet a glance at the conditions 
existing among the native populations of these countries will show how 
far they have lagged behind their younger and more scientific fellows. 
The recent marked advance of Japan is a striking example of what the 
acceptance of the evidence of the value of science and scientific methods 
can do in an industrial way. 
As a pure science mathematics is not only the oldest hut the most 
effective, in many respects, as a means of mental training; yet we are 
told that geometry had its origin in the necessity for preserving or recov- 
ering Egyptian land boundaries obliterated by the annual overflows of 
the Nile. Again, spherical trigonometry reached its developed stage 
before plain trigonometry because astronomy had need of it in the solu- 
tion of problems concerning the places and orbits of celestial bodies. 
Apparent^ astronomy would be the least likely of the sciences to be of 
material benefit to mankind and yet its influence upon economic problems 
has been such that progressive nations now sustain, at public expense, 
astronomical departments in which not only are the questions concerning 
navigation and surveying investigated but much time and labor are 
expended in research upon problems that can apparently have no connec- 
tion with material productiveness. 
Among some of the intensely practical results, of astronomy are the 
facilities afforded man to locate himself upon the earth’s surface, to 
define the boundaries between individual and national possessions, and 
to guide the commerce of the world safely over trackless seas. More than 
that, it has given us some of the greatest and grandest conceptions of 
nature that we possess, pointing out, as it does, something of the enor- 
mous magnitude of the stellar universe and the insignificance of man in 
comparison therewith. It is not a bad thing for man to pause sometimes 
and reflect upon the smallness of his importance in the economy of 
nature. 
On the other hand the highest progress in astronomy has been made 
possible only by the aid of applied science and invention, which is the 
offspring of applied science. In proportion as the construction of instru- 
ments for accurate observation and measurement has improved so has the 
