5b 
ABBE. 
CONCLUSION. 
The resolution of problems bearing on the mechanics of 
the earth’s atmosphere is stimulating the efforts of the world’s 
best men, and illustrates the stage to which meteorology has 
attained in its progress toward being an exact science. Some 
portions of meteorology are already as exact as our knowledge 
of chemistry, optics, physics, or astronomy can make them; 
other parts are still in an unsatisfactory condition, which, of 
course, is also true of every branch of knowledge. We must 
congratulate our colleague on the contributions that he has 
made along lines of research that will help the next genera- 
tion of students to a more thorough knowledge of laws that 
will eventually become the basis of satisfactory long-range 
forecasts. It will always redound to the credit of the Weather 
Bureau to have encouraged and published such work in this 
difficult field. 
Equally creditable to America is the conception and estab- 
lishment by the Chief of the Weather Bureau of a special 
research observatory at Mount Weather, where for the first 
time in the history of meteorology the researcher has been 
separated from the observer- and a special institution pro- 
vided for him. This seems like the realization of an idea 
contained in a paragraph in my address at Indianapolis in 
1890: “Why found new colleges and universities to teach 
what is already taught elsewhere? Exploration is the order of 
the day. Give us first the means to increase knowledge, to 
explore nature and to bring out new truths. Let us perfect 
knowledge before we diffuse it among mankind, so that what 
we teach may with every coming year be nearer and nearer 
the eternal truth of God’s creation.” 
This exhortation is as applicable today as then. Meteor- 
ology is not yet properly recognized in our colleges, nor as a 
postgraduate course in our universities. The science has 
progressed, but the universities have not kept up with it. 
Laboratories have been provided for chemistry, physics, 
psychology, wonderful observatories for astronomy and elab- 
orate establishments for mechanical engineering, but a labo- 
ratory for the experimental study of the motions of the 
atmosphere has not yet been provided, although the men 
who could conduct it are ready and anxious to begin the 
good work that they see before them. 
