CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

_Science_

One who surveys, without prejudice, the academic life of the country in reference to scientific work will receive a deep impression of the energy and carefulness with which this enormous national machinery of education furthers the higher intellectual life. And the continuous gradation of institutions by which the higher academy is able to adapt itself to every local need, so that no least remnant of free initiative can be lost and unlimited development is made possible at every point, must be recognized by every one as the best conceivable system for the country.

It is not to be denied that it brings with it certain difficulties and disadvantages. The administrative difficulties which proceed from the apparent incomparability of the institutions are really not serious, although the foreigner who is accustomed to uniformity in his universities, Gymnasia, certificates and doctorial diplomas, is inclined to overemphasize these difficulties in America. The real disadvantages of the system of continuous gradations is found, not in the outer administration, but in its inner methods. The German undergraduate takes the attitude of one who learns; his teacher must be thoroughly well informed, but no one expects a school-teacher himself to advance science. The graduate student, on the other hand, is supposed to take a critical attitude, and therefore his teacher has to be a teacher of methods—that is, he must be a productive investigator. Wherever, as in Germany, there lies a sharp distinction between these two provinces, it is easy to keep the spirit of investigation pure; but where, as in America, one merges into the other, the principles at stake are far too likely to be confused. Men who fundamentally are nothing but able school-teachers are then able to work up and stand beside the best investigators in the university faculties, because the principle of promotion on the ground of scientific production solely cannot be so clearly separated from the methods of selection which are adapted to the lower grades of instruction. To be sure, this has its advantages in other directions; because, in so far as there is no sharp demarcation, the spirit of investigation can also grow from above down, and therefore in many a smaller college there will be more productive scientists teaching than would be found, perhaps, in a German school; but yet the influences of the lower on the higher departments of instruction are the predominant ones. Investigation thrives best when the young scholar knows that his advancement depends ultimately on strictly scientific achievements, and not on work of a popular sort, nor on success in the teaching of second-hand knowledge. This fact has often been brought home to the public mind in recent years, and the leading universities have already more and more recognized the principle of considering scientific achievements to be the main ground for preferment.

But productive scholarship is interfered with in still other ways. Professors are often too much busied with administrative concerns; and although this sort of administrative influence may be attractive for many professors, its exercise requires much sacrifice of time. More particularly, the professors of most institutions, although there are many exceptions among the leading universities, are overloaded with lectures, and herein the graded transition from low to high works unfavourably. Especially in Western institutions, the administrative bodies do not see why the university professor should not lecture as many hours in the week as a school teacher; and most dangerous of all, as we have already mentioned in speaking of popular education, is the fact that the scholar is tempted, by high social and financial rewards, to give scientifically unproductive popular lectures and to write popular essays.

And the list of factors which have worked against scientific productiveness can be still further increased. To be sure, it would be false here to repeat the old tale that the American professor is threatened in his freedom by the whimsical demands of rich patrons, who have founded or handsomely endowed many of the universities. That is merely newspaper gossip; and the three or four cases which have busied public opinion in the last ten years and have been ridiculously overestimated, are found, on closer inspection, to have been cases which could have come up as well in any non-partisan institution in the world. There may have been mistakes on both sides; perhaps the university councils have acted with unnecessary rigour or lack of tact, but it has yet to be proved that there has been actual injustice anywhere. Even in small colleges purely scientific activity never interferes with the welfare of a professor. A blatant disrespect for religion would hurt his further prospects there, to be sure, just as in the Western state institutions the committees appointed by the legislature would dislike a hostile political attitude. Yet not even in the smallest college has any professor ever suffered the least prejudice by reason of his scientific labours. Science in America is not hampered by any lack of academic freedom.

On the other hand, the American university lacks one of the most important forces of German universities—the Privatdocent, who lives only for science, and without compensation places his teaching abilities in the service of his own scientific development. The young American scholar is welcome only where a paid position is vacant; but if he finds no empty instructorship in a large university, he is obliged to be content with a position in a small college, where the entire intellectual atmosphere, as regards the studies, apparatus, and amount of work exacted, all work against his desire to be scientifically productive, and finally perhaps kill it entirely. The large universities are just beginning to institute the system of voluntary docents—which, to be sure, encounters administrative difficulties. There is also a dangerous tendency toward academic in-breeding. The former students of an institution are always noticeably preferred for any vacant position, and the claims of capable scholars are often disregarded for the sake of quite insignificant men. Scientific productiveness meets further with the material obstacle of the high cost of printing in America, which makes it often more difficult for the young student here than in Germany to find a publisher for his works.

Against all this there are some external advantages: first, the lavishness of the accessories of investigation. The equipment of laboratories, libraries, museums, observatories, special institutes, and the fitting out of expeditions yield their due benefits. Then there are various sorts of free assistance—fellowships, travelling scholarships, and other foundations—which make every year many young scholars free for scientific work. There is also the admirable “sabbatical year.” The large universities give every professor leave of absence every seventh year, with the express purpose of allowing him time for his own scholarly labours. Another favourable circumstance is the excellent habit of work which every American acquires during his student years; and here it is not to be doubted that the American is on the average, and in consequence of his system has to be, more industrious than the German average student. From the beginning of his course, he is credited with only such lecture courses as he has passed examinations on, and these are so arranged as to necessitate not only presence at the lectures, but also the study of prescribed treatises; the student is obliged to apply himself with considerable diligence. A student who should give himself entirely to idling, as may happen in Germany, would not finish his first college year. If the local foot-ball gossip is no more sensible than the talk at duelling clubs, at least the practice of drinking beer in the morning and playing skat have no evil counterpart of comparable importance in America. The American student recreates himself on the athletic field rather than in the ale-house. Germany is exceedingly sparing of time and strength during school years, but lets both be wasted in the universities to the great advantage of a strong personality here and there, but to the injury of the average man. America wastes a good deal of time during school years, but is more sparing during the college and university courses, and there accustoms each student to good, hard work.

And most of all, the intellectual make-up of the American is especially adapted to scientific achievements. This temperament, owing to the historical development of the nation, has so far addressed itself to political, industrial, and judicial problems, but a return to theoretical science has set in; and there, most of all, the happy combination of inventiveness, enthusiasm, and persistence in pursuit of a goal, of intellectual freedom and elasticity, of feeling for form and of idealistic instinct for self-perfection will yield, perhaps soon, remarkable triumphs.

We have hitherto spoken only of the furtherance of science by the higher institutions of learning, but we must look at least hastily on what is being done outside of academic circles. We see, then, first of all, the magnificent government institutions at Washington which, without doing any teaching, are in the sole service of science. The cultivation of the sciences by twenty-eight special institutions and an army of 6,000 persons, conducted at an annual expense of more than $8,000,000, is certainly a unique feature of American government. There is no other government in the world which is organized for such a many-sided scientific work; and nevertheless, everything which is done there is closely related to the true interests of government—that is, not to the interests of the dominant political party, but to those of the great self-governing nation. All the institutes, as different as they are in their special work, have this in common—that they work on problems which relate to the country, population, products, and the general conditions of America, so that they meet first of all the national needs of an economical, social, intellectual, political, and hygienic sort, and only in a secondary way contribute to abstract science.

The work of these government institutes is peculiar, moreover, in that the results are published in many handsomely gotten-up volumes, and sent free of cost to hundreds of thousands of applicants. The institutions are devoted partly to science and partly to political economy. Among the scientific institutes are the admirable Bureau of Geological Survey, which has six hundred officials, and undertakes not only geological but also palæontological and hydrographic investigations, and carries on mineralogical and lithological laboratories; then the Geodetic Survey, which studies the coasts, rivers, lakes, and mountains of the country; the Marine Observatory, for taking astronomical observations; the Weather Bureau, which conducts more than one hundred and fifty meteorological stations; the Bureau of Biology, which makes a special study of the geographical distribution of plants and animals; the Bureau of Botany, which studies especially all problems connected with seeds; the Bureau of Forestry, which scientifically works on questions of the national timber supply; the important Bureau of Entomology, which has studied with great success the relations of insects to agriculture; the Bureau of Agriculture, which statistically works out experiments on planting, and which directs government experiment stations situated throughout the country; the Department of Fisheries, which conducts stations for marine biology; and many others. Among the political economic institutes in the broad sense of the word are the Bureau of Labour, which undertakes purely sociological investigations into labour conditions; the Corporation Bureau, which studies the conditions of organized business; the Bureau of General Statistics; the Census Bureau, which every ten years takes a census more complete than that of any other country. The Census of 1890 consisted of 39 large folio volumes, and the collecting of information alone cost $10,000,000. The Census of 1900 is still in course of publication. The Bureau of Education also belongs here, which studies purely theoretically the statistics of education. Then there are the Bureau of Immigration and several others. All these bureaus are really designed to impart instruction and advice; they have no authority to enforce any measures. But the extraordinary publicity which is given to their printed reports gives them a very considerable influence; and the thoroughness with which the investigations are carried on, thanks to the liberal appropriations of Congress, makes of these bureaus scientific and economic institutions of the highest order.

We have still to speak of the most famous of the government bureaus, the Smithsonian Institution. In 1836 the government came into the possession, by bequest, of the whole property of the Englishman Smithson, as a principal with which an institution should be founded bearing his name, and serving the advance and dissemination of science. It was never known just why this Oxonian and mineralogist left his large property to the city of Washington, which then numbered only 5,000 inhabitants. Although he had never visited America, he wrote to a friend: “The best blood of England flows in my veins; my father’s family is from Northumberland, my mother’s is related to kings. But I desire to have my name remembered when the titles of the Northumberlands and the Percys shall have been forgotten.” His instinct guided him aright, and the Smithsonian Institution is to-day an intellectual centre in Washington—that city which is the political centre of the New World. It should be mentioned, in passing, that Congress accepted the bequest only after lively opposition; it was objected that to receive the gift of a foreigner was beneath the dignity of the government. As a fact, however, the success of the institution is not due so much to this foreign endowment as to the able labours of its three presidents: the physicist Henry, who served from 1846 to 1878, the zoölogist Baird from 1878 to 1887, and the physicist Langley, who has been at the head since 1887. All three have been successful in finding ways by which the institute could serve the growth and dissemination of science.

It was agreed from the outset not to found a university which would compete with others already existing, but an institute to complement all existing institutions, and to be a sort of centre among them. The great institution was divided into the following divisions: first, the National Museum, in which the visible results of all the national expeditions and excavations are gathered and arranged. The American idea is that a scientific museum should not be a series of articles with their labels, but rather a series of instructive labels, illustrated by typical specimens. Only in this way, it is thought, does a museum really help to educate the masses. The collection, which is visited every year by more than 300,000 persons, includes 750,000 ethnological and anthropological objects; almost 2,000,000 zoölogical, 400,000 botanical, and almost 300,000 palæontological specimens. Then there is the National Zoölogical Park, which contains animal species that are dying out; the Astrophysical Observatory, in which Langley carries on his famous experiments on the invisible portion of the solar spectrum; the Ethnological Bureau, which specially studies the Indian; and much else. The department of exchanges of this institute is a unique affair; it negotiates exchanges between scientists, libraries, and other American institutions, and also between these and European institutions. As external as this service may seem, it has become indispensable to the work of American science. Moreover, the library of the institution is among the most important in the country; and its zoölogical, ethnological, physical, and geological publications, which are distributed free to 4,000 libraries, already fill hundreds of volumes.

Any one examining the many-sided and happily circumstanced scientific work of these twenty-eight institutes at Washington will come to feel that the equipment could be used to better advantage if actual teaching were to be undertaken, and that the organization of the institutes into a national university attracting students from all parts of the country would tend to stimulate their achievements. In fact, the thought of a national university as the crowning point of the educational system of the country has always been entertained in Washington; and those who favour this idea are able to point to George Washington as the one who first conceived such a plan. In spite of vigorous agitation, this plan is still not realized, chiefly because the traditions of the country make education the concern of the separate states, and reserve it for such institutions as are independent of politics.

It is a different question, whether the time will not come when the nation will desire an institution of a higher sort—one which will not rival the other large universities of the country, but will stand above them all and assume new duties. A purely scientific institution might exist, admitting students only after they have passed their doctorial examination, and of which the professors should be elected by the vote of their colleagues through the country. There is much need of such a university; but the time may not be ripe for it now, and it may be a matter of the far future. And yet at the present rate at which science is developing in the country, the far future means only ten or fifteen years hence. When the time is ripe, the needed hundreds of millions of dollars will be forthcoming.

For the present, a sort of half-way station to a national university at Washington has been reached. This is the Carnegie Institute, whose efficiency can so far not be wholly estimated. With a provisional capital of $10,000,000 given by Andrew Carnegie, it is proposed to aid scientific investigations throughout the country, and on the recommendation of competent men to advance to young scientists the necessary means for productive investigations. There is, unfortunately, a danger here that in this way the other universities and foundations of the country may feel relieved of their responsibility, and so relax their efforts. It may be that people will look to the centre for that which formerly came from the periphery, and that in this way the general industry will become less intense. Most of all, the Carnegie Institute has, up to this point, lacked broad fruitful ideas and a real programme of what it proposes to do. If the institute cannot do better than it has so far done, it is to be feared that its arbitrary and unsystematic aid will do, in the long run, more harm than good to the scientific life of the country.

The same general conditions, on a smaller scale and with many variations, are found outside of Washington in a hundred different scientific museums and collections—biological, hygienic, medical, historical, economic, and experimental institutions; zoölogical and botanical gardens; astronomical observatories; biological stations, which are found sometimes under state or city administration, sometimes under private or corporate management. Thus the Marine Laboratory at Woods Hole is a meeting-place every summer for the best biologists. Sometimes important collections can be found in the most unlikely places—as, for instance, in the historic museum of the city of Salem, which, although it has gone to sleep to-day, is still proud of its history. The large cities, however, like New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, and Baltimore, have established admirable institutions, on which scientific work everywhere depends. Then there are the political capitals, such as Albany, with their institutions. That German who is most thoroughly acquainted with conditions of scientific collections, Professor Meyer, the director of the scientific museums at Dresden, has given his opinion in his admirable work on the museums of the Eastern United States as follows: “I have received a profound impression of American capabilities in this direction, and can even say that the museums of natural history of that country are generally on a higher plane than those of Europe. We have, so far as buildings and administrative machinery go, very few good and many moderate or downright poor museums, while the Americans have many more good and many fewer bad ones; and those which are poor are improving at the rapid American pace, while with us improvement is hopelessly slow.”

There is still another important factor in the scientific societies, whose membership, to be sure, is chiefly composed of the personnel of the higher educational institutions, but which nevertheless exert an independent influence on scientific life. The National Academy of Science is officially at the head. It was founded in 1863, having a hundred members and electing five new members each year. While its annual meetings in Washington observe only the ordinary scientific programme, the society has as a special function the advising of Congress and the government on scientific matters. Thus, this academy drew up the plans for organizing the Geological Survey and for replanting the national forests. The political atmosphere of Washington, however, has not been too favourable to the success of the Academy, and it has never attained the national significance of the Paris and London academies.

The American Historical Association has a similar character; and its transactions are published at the expense of the government. The popular associations, of course, reach much larger circles; thus, for instance, the American Society for the Advancement of Science, which has existed for fifty years, has about the same functions as the German Naturforscherversammlung. It brings together at its annual meetings, which are always held in different places, a thousand or so scientists, and holds in different sections a great many lectures. Still more popular are the meetings of the similarly organized National Educational Association, which brings together more than ten thousand members at its summer meetings, which are often held in pleasant and retired spots. In these and similar sessions, scientific work is popularized, while in the specialized societies it is stimulated toward greater profundity. In fact, there is no medical, natural-historical, legal, theological, historical, economic, philological, or philosophical specialty which has not its special national societies with annual congresses. It is increasingly the custom to hold these popular sessions during the summer holidays, but the strictly scientific congresses during the first week in January. The physicians, by exception, meet at Easter. In order that the business-like separation of subjects may not exclude a certain contact of scientific neighbours, it is increasingly the plan to organize groups of congresses; thus, the seven societies of anatomy, physiology, morphology, plant physiology, psychology, anthropology, and folk-lore always meet at the same time in the same city.

Besides these wandering meetings, finally, there are the local societies. Of these, the veteran is the Academy in Philadelphia. It was founded by Franklin in 1743, and so far as its membership goes, may claim to have a national character. In a similar way the American Academy, founded in 1780, has its home in Boston. Then there are the New York Academy, the Washington Academy, which has recently enlarged so as to include members from the whole country, and which ultimately will probably merge into the National Academy; the academies of Baltimore, Chicago, New Haven, and a hundred smaller associations, which for the most part are not merely interested in spreading scientific information, but in helping on the results of science.

We cannot hope to call the complete roll here of scientific production. Our purpose was merely to relate some of the favourable and unfavourable influences under which the American has to make his contribution to the science of the day. Merely for a first orientation, we may give some more detailed accounts in a few departments. At first sight, one might be tempted to give a sketch of present-day production by directly depicting the production with reference to the special higher institutions. Much more than in Germany, the results of scientific research are brought before the public eye with the official seal of some university. Every large educational institution publishes its own contributions to many different sciences; thus, the University of Chicago, which perhaps goes furthest in this respect, publishes journals of sociology, pedagogy, biblical studies, geology, astronomy, botany, etc.; and, besides these, regular series of studies in science, government, classical philology, Germanic and Romance languages, English philology, anthropology, and physiology. Johns Hopkins University publishes mathematical, chemical, and biological magazines; a journal for experimental medicine, one for psychiatry, for modern philology, for history, and Assyriology. Among the periodical publications of Harvard University, the astronomical, zoölogical, cryptogamic, ethnological, Oriental, classical philological, modern philological, historical, and economic journals are the best known. Columbia, Pennsylvania, and several other universities publish equally many journals. There are also a great many books published under the auspices of institutions of learning, which relate to expeditions or other special matters. Thus, for instance, Yale University, on the occasion of its two-hundredth anniversary in 1901, published commemorative scientific papers by its professors in twenty-five large volumes; the papers themselves ranging from such subjects as the Hindu epic and Greek metre to thermo-dynamics and physiological chemistry.

The various universities have always been known to have their scientific specialties. That of Johns Hopkins is natural science; of Columbia, the science of government; of Harvard, literature and philosophy. But the universities are, of course, not confined to their specialties; for instance, Johns Hopkins has done very much in philology, Columbia in biology, and while Harvard has been famous for its literary men, like Longfellow, Holmes, Norton and Child, it has also had such distinguished men on its faculty as the zoölogist Agassiz, the botanist Gray, and the astronomer Pickering.

It may be more natural to classify scientific production according to the separate sciences. The list is too long to be given entire. The venerable subject of philosophy is generally placed first in the university catalogues of lectures. This subject shows at once how much and how little is being done. A German, to be sure, is apt to have false standards in this matter; for if he thinks of German philosophy, he recalls the names of Kant, Schopenhauer, Fichte, and Hegel; and he asks what America has produced to compare with these. But we have seen that the work of productive science was commenced in the New World only a few decades ago, and for this reason we must compare the present day in America with the present day in Germany; and to be just, we should compare the American scholar only with the younger and middle-aged Germans who have developed under the scientific conditions of the last thirty years—that is, with men not over sixty years old. Young geniuses are not plentiful, even in Germany to-day; and not only are men like Kant and Hegel lacking in philosophy, but also in other departments of science; men like Ranke and Helmholtz seem not to belong to our day of specialization. A new wave of idealistic and broadly generalizing thought is advancing. The time of great thinkers will come again; but a young country is not to be blamed for the spirit of the times, nor ought its present accomplishment to be measured after the standards of happier days. If we make a perfectly fair comparison, we shall find that American philosophy is at present up to that of any other country.

Externally, in the first place, America makes a massive showing, even if we leave out of account philosophical literature of the more popular sort. While, for example, England has only two really important philosophical magazines, America has at least five which are as good as the English; and if philosophy is taken in the customary wider sense, sociological and pedagogical journals must be included, which are nowhere surpassed. The emphasis is laid differently in America and Germany; and this difference, which may be seen in almost all sciences, generally, though not always, has deeper grounds than merely personal ones, and is in every case apt to distort the judgment of a foreigner. America, for instance, is astonishingly unproductive in the history of philosophy. Every need seems to be satisfied by translations from the German or by very perfunctory text-book compilations. On the other hand, the theory of knowledge, ethics, and above all psychology, are very prosperous. Disputes in epistemology have always been carried on in America, and the Calvinistic theology, more especially, arrived at important conclusions. At the beginning of the eighteenth century lived Jonathan Edwards, who was perhaps the greatest metaphysical mind in the history of America. The transcendental way of thought, which is profoundly planted in the American soul, was nurtured by German idealism, and found expression through the genius of Emerson. Then, in more systematic and academic ways, there have been philosophers like Porter and McCosh, who stood under Scotch influence and fought against positivism; others, like Harris and Everett, who have represented German tendencies; while Draper, Fiske, Cope, Leconte, and others have preached the philosophy of science. In the front ranks to-day of philosophers are Ladd, Dewey, Fullerton, Bowne, Ormond, Howison, Santayana, Palmer, Strong, Hibben, Creighton, Lloyd, and most influential of all, Royce, whose latest work, “The World and the Individual,” is perhaps the most significant epistemological system of our day.

Psychology is the most favoured of all the philosophical disciplines in America at the present time. This is shown outwardly in the growth of laboratories for experimental psychology, which in size and equipment far exceed those of Europe. America has more than forty laboratories. Foremost in this psychological movement is William James, who is, next to Wundt, the most distinguished psychologist living, and whose remarkable analysis of conscious phenomena has been set down with a freshness and liveliness, an energy and discrimination, which are highly characteristic of American intellect. Then there are other well-known investigators like Stanley Hall, Cattell, Baldwin, Ladd, Sanford, Titchener, Angell, Miss Calkins, Scripture, and many others. In pedagogy, which is now disporting itself in a great display of paper and ink, the names of Harris, Eliot, Butler, Hall, Da Garmo, and Hanus are the most respected.

Just as theological and metaphysical speculations, ever since the early Colonial days, have preceded present-day scientific philosophy, so in the science of history systematic investigators were preceded in early days by the Colonial historians, beginning with Bradford and Winthrop. A people which are so restless to make history, so proud of their doings, so grateful to their heroes, and which more than any other people base their law and public policy avowedly on precedent, will necessarily have enjoyed the recounting of their own past. America has had a systematic history, however, only since the thirties, and two periods of work are generally distinguished; an earlier one, in which historians undertook to cover the whole subject of American history, or at least very large portions of it, and a later period embracing the last decade, in which historical interest has been devoted to minuter studies. Bancroft and Parkman stand for the first movement. George Bancroft began to write his history in 1830, and worked patiently thereon for half a century. By 1883 the development of the country, from its discovery up to the adoption of the American Constitution, had been completed in a thorough-going fashion. Parkman was the greater genius, and one who opened an entirely new perspective in American history by his investigations and fascinating descriptions of the wars between the English and the French colonists. The great works of Hildreth and Tucker should also be mentioned here.

The period of specialized work, of course, covers less ground. The large monographs of Henry Adams, John Fiske, Rhodes, Schouler, McMaster, Eggleston, Roosevelt, and of Von Holst, if an adoptive son of America may be included, are accounted the best pieces of work. They have described American history partly by geographical regions and partly by periods; and they show great diversity of style, as may be seen by comparing the martial tone of Holst and the majestic calmness of Rhodes. To these must be added the biographies, of which the best known form the series of “American Statesmen.” Americans are particularly fond of studying a portion of national history from the life of some especially active personality. Then too, for twenty years, there has been a considerable and indispensable fabrication of historical research. Large general works and reference books, like those of Winsor, Hart, and others; the biographies, archive studies, correspondences, local histories, often published by learned societies; series of monographs, journals, the chief of which is the _American Historical Review_—in short, everything necessary to the modern cultivation of historical science are to be found abundantly. The Revolution, the beginnings of the Federation, the Civil War, and Congress are specially favoured topics. It is almost a matter of course that the independent investigation into European history is very little attempted; although very good things have been done, such as Prescott’s work on Spanish history, Motley’s Rise of the Dutch Republic; and in recent times, for instance, Taylor has made important studies in English history, Perkins in French, Henderson in German, Thayer in Italian, Lea and Emerton in ecclesiastical history, Mahan in the history of naval warfare, and similarly others.

This lively interest in philosophy and history is itself enough to disprove the old fable that American science is directed only toward material ends. Perhaps, to be sure, some one might say that philosophy is practiced to better mankind and history to teach politicians some practical lessons, while both statements are in point of fact false. No such charge, however, can be made against classical philology; and yet no one can read the transactions, which constitute many volumes, of the five hundred members of the Philological Association, or read the numbers of the _American journal of Philology_, or the classical studies published by Harvard, Cornell, and Chicago, without feeling distinctly that here is scientific work of the strictest sort, and that the methods of investigations are steadily improving. The movement is younger in this department than in the others. To be sure, the classical authors have been well known in America for two centuries; but in no province has the dilettanteism of the English gentleman so thoroughly prevailed. It was not until the young philologians commenced to visit German universities, and especially Göttingen, that a thorough-going philology was introduced. And such a work as the forty-four students of the great classicist, Gildersleeve, published on the occasion of his seventieth birthday, would have been impossible twenty years ago. The greatest interest is devoted to syntactical investigation, in which the best-known works are those of Goodwin, Gildersleeve, and Hale; while there are some works on lexicography and comparative languages, and fewer still on textual criticism. Every classical philologian knows the names of Hadley, Beck, Allen, Lane, Warren, Smyth, White, Wheeler, Shorey, Dressier, and many others.

There is an unusual interest in Oriental philology, which is slightly influenced indeed by practical motives. For instance, the great religious interest taken in the Bible—not by scientists, but by the general public—has sent out special expeditions and done much to advance the study of cuneiform inscriptions. The Assyrian collections of the University of Pennsylvania are accounted, in many respects, the most complete in existence. Its curator, Hilprecht, is well known, and Lyon, Haupt, and others almost as well. Whitney, of Yale, was undoubtedly the leader in Sanskrit. Lanman, of Harvard, is his most famous successor, and besides him are Jackson, Buck, Bloomfield, and others. Toy is the great authority on Semitic languages.

It would lead us too far away if we were to follow philological science into modern languages. As a matter of course, the English language and literature are the most studied; in fact, English philology has had its real home in the New World since the days of Child. Francis James Child, one of the most winning personalities in the history of American scholarship, has contributed much on Chaucer and ancient English dramas; and as his great work, has gathered together English and Scottish ballads into a collection of ten volumes. This work has often been esteemed as America’s greatest contribution to philology. Kittredge, who has succeeded Child at Harvard, works on much the same lines. Lounsbury is known especially for his brilliant works on Chaucer; Manley has also studied Chaucer and the pre-Shakesperian drama; Gummere the early ballads, while Wendell and Furness are the great Shakesperian scholars. The Arthurian legends have been especially studied by Schofield, Mead, Bruce, and others; the Anglo-Saxon language by Bright, Cook, Brown, and Callaway. Lowell was the first great critic of literature, and he has been followed by Gates and many others. The belles-lettres themselves have given rise to a large historical and critical literature, such as the admirable general works of Steadman, Richardson, and Tyler, and the monographs by Woodberry, Cabot, Norton, Warner, and Higginson. The very best work, however, on American literature, in spite of all aspersions cast on the extreme aristocrat, is Barrett Wendell’s “Literary History of America.” We might mention a long list of works on Romance and Germanic languages and literature. At least emphasis must be laid on one, Kuno Francke’s extraordinary book on “Social Influences in German Literature,” the work of the most gifted herald of German culture in America. We may also mention the works of Thomas and Hempl in Germanic, and Todd, Elliot, and Cohn in romance languages.

Political economy is the favourite study of the American, since the history of this country has been determined by economic factors more directly than that of any other nation, and since all the different economic periods have been lived through in the still surveyable past. In a sense, the country looks like a tremendous experimental laboratory of political economy. The country is so unevenly developed that the most diverse economic stages are to be found in regions which are geographically near each other, and everything goes on, as it were, under the scientific magnifying glass of the statistical student. Remarkably enough, the actual history of economics has been rather neglected in American studies, in spite of many beginnings made in Germany on the history of American economics. The chief attention of the nation has been given rather to the systematic analysis and deductive investigation of special conditions. In political economy there are, of course, first the well-known agitators like Henry Carey, the great protectionist of the first half of the century; Henry George, the single-tax theorist, whose book, “Progress and Poverty,” found in 1879 extraordinary circulation; and Bellamy, whose “Utopia” was in much the same style: and the political tracts on economic subjects are far too numerous to think of mentioning. The really scientific works form another group. At first we find the pioneer efforts of the seventies and eighties—Wells’s work on tariff and commerce, Charles Francis Adams’s work on railways, Sumner’s on the history of American finance, Atkinson’s on production and distribution, Wright’s on wages, Knox’s on banking, and the general treatises of Walker, who conducted the censuses of 1870 and 1880. In recent times the chief works are those of Hadley on railroads, of Clark on capital, of James on political finance and municipal administration, of Ely on taxation, of Taussig on tariff, silver and wages, of Jenks on trusts, of Brooks on labour movements, of Seligman on the politics of taxation, of H. C. Adams on scientific finance, of Gross on the history of English economics, of Patten on economic theory, and of Lowell on the science of government. Moreover, the political economists and students of government have an unusually large number of journals at their disposal. In sociology there are Giddings, Small, and Ward, known everywhere, and after them Willcox, Ripley, and others.

We have spent too much time over the historical disciplines. Let us look at the opposite pole of the scientific globe from the mental sciences to the natural sciences, and at first to mathematics. Mathematicians were especially late in waking up to really scientific achievements; and this was scarcely ten years ago, so that all the productive mathematicians are the younger professors. Of the older period, there are but three mathematicians of great importance—Benjamin Peirce, perhaps the most brilliant of American mathematicians, and his pupils, Hill and Newcomb. Their chief interest has been mathematical astronomy. Of their generation are also Willard Gibbs in mathematical physics, McClintock in algebra, and Charles Peirce in mathematical logic. In the last ten years, it is no longer a question of a few great names. The younger generation has taken its inspiration from Germany and France, and is busily at work in pure mathematics; there are Moore and Dixon, of Chicago; Storey and Taber, of Clark; Böcher and Osgood, of Harvard; White at Evanston; Van Vleck at Wesleyan, and many others.

We find again, in the natural sciences, that the American by no means favours only practical studies. There is no less practical a science than astronomy, and yet we find a series of great successes. This is externally noticeable in a general interest in astronomy; no other country in the world has so many well-equipped observatories as the United States, and no other country manufactures such perfect astronomical lenses. America has perfected the technique of astronomy. Roland, for instance, has improved the astronomical spectroscope, and Pickering has made brilliant contributions to photometry. The catalogue of stars by Gould and Langley is an indispensable work, and America has contributed its full share to the observation of asteroids and comets. Newcomb, however, who is the leader since forty years, has done the most brilliant work, in his thorough computations of stellar paths and masses. We should also not forget Chandler’s determination of magnitudes, Young’s work on the sun, Newton’s on meteorites, and Barnard’s on comets.

Surprisingly enough, the development of scientific physics has been less brilliant so far. Only in optics has really anything of high importance been done; but in this field there have been such accomplishments as Michelson’s measurements of lightwaves, Rowland’s studies of concave gratings, Newcomb’s measurements on the speed of light, and Langley’s studies of the ultra-red rays. In all other fields the work is somewhat disconnected; although, to be sure, in the branches of electricity, acoustics, and heat, important discoveries have been made by Trowbridge, Woodward, Barus, Wood, Cross, Nichols, Hall, B. O. Pierce, Sabine, and many others. In purely technical subjects, especially those related to electricity, much has been done of serious scientific importance; and these triumphs in technical branches are, of course, famous throughout the world. From the hand tool of the workman to locomotives and bridges, American mechanics have been victorious. Applied physics has yielded the modern bicycle, the sewing-machine, the printing-press, tool-making machinery, and a thousand other substitutes for muscular labour; has also perfected the telegraph, the incandescent lamp, the telephone and the phonograph, and every day brings some new laurel to the American inventor. But it is not to be supposed that Edison, Tesla, and Bell are the sole representatives of American physics. Quiet scientific work of the highest order is carried on in a dozen laboratories. Meteorology ought to be mentioned as a branch of physics; it has been favoured by the large field of observation which America offers and has developed brilliantly under Ferrel, Hazen, Greely, Harrington, Mendenhall, Rotch, and others.

It is still more true of chemistry than of physics that advance has been independent of the industrial application of science. The leading chemists have all worked in the interests of pure science; and this work started at the beginning of the last century, when Benjamin Silliman, of Yale, the editor of the first magazine for natural science, laid the foundations for his scientific school. He was followed in succeeding generations by Hare, Smith, Hunt, and most notably Cooke, whose studies on the periodic law and the atomic weight of oxygen are specially valuable. Of later men there are Willard Gibbs, the Nestor of chemical thermo-dynamics, who became famous by his theory of the phase rule, and Wolcott Gibbs through his studies on complex acids. Crafts is known for his researches into organic compounds, and Mallet by classical investigations into the atomic weight of aluminum. Other valuable contributions have been Hillebrand’s analysis of minerals, Stieglitz’s organic syntheses, Noyes’s studies on ions, the work of Clark and Richards on atomic weights, Gooch’s technical discoveries, Hill’s synthetic production of benzol compounds, Warren’s work with mineral oils, Baskerville’s study of thorium, not to mention the highly prized text-books of Ira Remsen, the discoverer of saccharin. Among the physiological and agricultural chemists, the best known are Chittenden, Pfaff, Atwater, and Hilgard. The pioneer of physical chemistry is Richards, of Harvard, probably the only American professor so far who has been called to the position of a full professor at a German university. He remained in America, although invited to Göttingen. Bancroft and Noyes are at work on the same branch of chemistry.

The work in chemistry is allied in many ways to mineralogy, petrography, and geology. Oddly enough, mineralogy has centred distinctly at one place—Yale University. The elder Dana used to work there, whose “System of Mineralogy” first appeared in 1837, and while frequently revised has remained for half a century the standard book in any language; Dana’s chemical classification of minerals has also found general acceptance. His son, the crystallographer, worked here, as also Brush and Penfield, who has investigated more kinds of stone than any other living man. Beside these well-known leaders, there are such men as Lawrence Smith, Cooke, Gerth, Shepard, and Wolff. The advances in geology have been still more brilliant, since nature made America an incomparable field of study. Hall had already made an early beginning here, and Dana and Whitney, Hayden and King, Powell and Gilbert, Davis, Shaler, and Branner have continued the work. Remains of the Glacial Epoch and mountain formation have been the favourite topics. And the investigation which has frequently been connected with practical mining interests is among the most important, and in Europe the most highly regarded of American scientific achievements.

Closely related to the geological are the geographical studies. The Government Bureau of Survey figures prominently here, by reason of its magnificent equipment. Most famous are the coast surveys of Pache and Mendenhall, and the land surveys of Rogers, Whitney, and Gannet. The hydrographic investigations of Maury have perhaps had more influence on geography, and his physical geography of the ocean has opened up new lines of inquiry; Guyot has done most to spread the interests of geography. Americans have always been greatly interested in expeditions to dangerous lands, wherefore many Americans have been pioneers, missionaries, and scientific travellers. In this spirit Lewis and Clark explored the Northwest, Wilkes crossed the Pacific Ocean, Perry went to Japan, and Stanley to Africa; others have travelled to South America, and many expeditions have been started for the North Pole since the first expedition of Kane in 1853. Palæontology has been well represented in America, and has contributed a good deal to the advance in geology. Hall commenced the work with studies on invertebrate fossils; then came Hyatt, who studied fossil cephalopods, Scudder fossil insects, Beecher brachiopods; and then Leidy, Cope, Osborne, and above all, the great scientist, Marsh—all of whom have studied fossil vertebrates.

Almost every one of these men was at the same time a systematic zoölogist. Especially in former days, many young men devoted themselves to systematic zoölogy under the leadership of Audubon, whose pioneer work on “The Birds of America” appeared in 1827; then later of Say, the first investigator of butterflies and mussels; and still later of Louis Agassiz, the great student of jelly-fish, hydroids and polyps, whose son, Alexander Agassiz, has carried on the famous studies of coral islands. Besides these men have laboured LeConte, Gill, Packard, and Verrill in the province of invertebrates; Baird, Ridgeway, Huntington, Allen, Meriam, and Jordan in the field of vertebrates. At the present time interest in America as well as in Europe is turning toward histology and embryology. Here, too, the two Agassizes have taken the lead, the senior Agassiz with his studies on turtles, the younger Agassiz in studies on starfishes. Next to theirs come the admirable works of Wyman, Whitman, Brooks, Minot, Mark, and Wilson, and the investigations of Davenport on the subject of variation. The phenomenon of life has been studied now by zoölogists and again by biologists and physiologists. Here belong the researches into the conscious life of lower animals carried on by Lee and Parker, and the excellent investigations of the German-American Jacques Loeb, of California, who has placed the tropisms of animals and the processes of fertilization in a wholly new light. Of his colleagues in physiology, the best known are Bowditch, Howell, Porter, and Meltzer.

The highest organism which the natural scientist can study is man, taken not historically, but anthropologically. The American has been forced to turn to anthropology and to ethnology, since circumstances have put at his hand some hundred types of Indians, with the most diverse languages and customs, and since, moreover, peoples have streamed from every part of the world to this country; millions of African negroes are here, the ground is covered with the remains of former Indian life, and the strange civilizations of Central America have left their remains near by. The Ethnological Bureau at Washington and the Peabody Museum at Harvard have instituted many expeditions and investigations. In recent times the works of Morgan, Hale, Brinton, Powell, Dall, Putnam, McGee, and Boas have opened new perspectives, especially on the subject of the American Indian.

The American flora has contributed no less new material to science than the American fauna. European botanists had commenced the work with tours of observation, when in the middle of the last century Asa Gray began his admirable life-work. He was in the closest sympathy with European botanists, and published in all more than four hundred papers on the classification and systematic study of the profuse material. Gray died in 1888, undoubtedly the greatest botanist that America has produced. His labours have been supplemented by his teacher, Torrey; by Chapman, who worked up the southeastern part of the country; by scientific travellers, such as Wright and Watson; by Engelmann, who studied cacti; Bebb, who studied the fields; by Coulter, the expert on the plants of the Rocky Mountains; by Bailey and many others. This great work is more or less pervaded by the ideas of Gray; but in the last twenty years it has branched off in several directions under a number of leaders. Farlow has reached out into cryptogamic botany, Goodale into plant physiology, and Sargent into dendrology. There has been, moreover, considerable specialization and subdivision of labour in the botanical gardens of New York, Boston, and St. Louis, and the herbaria and botanical institutes of various universities and of the agricultural experiment stations. These institutions put forth publications under the editorship of such able botanists as Robinson, Trelease, Fernald, Smith, and True; and these works are not excelled by those of any other country.

We have had, perhaps, too much of mere names; and yet these have been only examples, calculated to show the strength and the weakness of the scientific development of America. We have sought specially to keep within the limits of the “philosophical faculties.” It would be interesting to go into the subjects of theology, law and medicine, and of technology in a similar way; but it would lead too far. Yet whether the unprejudiced observer considers such disciplines as we have described, or whether he looks out into neighbouring academic fields, he will find the same flourishing condition of things—a bold, healthy, and intelligent progress, with a complete understanding of the true aim of science, with tireless industry, able organization, and optimistic energy.

Of course, the actual achievements are very uneven; they are, in some directions, superior to those of England and France—in a few directions even to those of Germany, but in others far inferior to German attainments. We have seen that the conditions a short time ago were unfortunate for science, and that only recently have they given way to more favourable factors. Most people see such favourable factors first of all in the financial support offered to the investigator; but the chief aid for such work does not lie in the providing of appliances. Endowments can do no more than supply books, apparatus, laboratories, and collections for those who wish to study, but all that never makes a great scientist; the average level of study may be improved by material support, but it will never be brought above a certain level of mediocrity. For, after all, science depends chiefly on the personal factor; and good men can do everything, even on narrow means.

The more important factor in the opulence which science now enjoys is an indirect one; it improves the social status of scientific workers, so that better human material is now attracted to the scientific career. As long as scientific life meant poverty and dependence, the only people attracted to it were men of the schoolteaching stamp; the better men have craved something fuller and greater, and have wished to expend their strength in the more thoroughly living province of industrial and commercial life, where alone the great social premiums were to be found. But now the case is different. Science has been recognized by the nation; scientific and university life has become rich in significance, the professor is no longer a school-teacher, and the right kind of young scholar is stepping into the arena. Another factor is working in the same direction. Substantial families are coming to the third generation, when they go over from trade to art and science. The sons of the best people with great vitality and great personality prefer now to work in the laboratory rather than in the bank. Each one brings Yankee intelligence and Yankee energy with him. This social reappraisement of science, and its effect on the quality of men who become productive scholars, are the best indication of the coming greatness of American science.