It is true that Eliot’s distinguished position has contributed very much to his outward success—that position which he has filled for thirty-five years, and which in itself guarantees a peculiar influence on academic life. But the decisive thing has been his personality. He is enthusiastic and yet conservative, bold and yet patient, always glad to consider the objections of the youngest teacher; he is religious, and nevertheless a confident exponent of modern science. First of all, he is through and through an aristocrat: his interest is in the single, gifted, and solid personality rather than in the masses; and his conception of the inequality of man is the prime motive of his whole endeavour. But at the same time he is the best of democrats, for he lays the greatest stress on making it possible for the earnest spirit to press on and emerge from the lowest classes of the people. Harvard has set its roots as never before through the whole country, and thereby has drawn on the intellectual and moral energies of the entire nation.
Under the president come the faculties, of which each one is presided over by a dean. The largest faculty is the faculty of arts and sciences, whose members lecture both for the college and for the Graduate School. There is really no sharp distinction, and the announcement of lectures says merely that certain elementary courses are designed for younger students in the college, and that certain others are only for advanced students. Moreover, the seminaries and laboratory courses for scientific research are open only to students of the Graduate School. The rest is common ground.
As always happens, the faculty includes very unlike material, a number of the most distinguished investigators, along with others who are first of all teachers. In general, the older generation of men belongs to that time in which the ability to teach was thought more important than pure scholarship. On the other hand, the middle generation is much devoted to productive investigations. The youngest generation of instructors is somewhat divided. A part holds the ideal of creative research, another part is in a sort of reactionary mood against the modern high estimation of specialized work; and has rather a tendency once more to emphasize the idealistic side of academic activity—the beauty of form and the cultivating value of belles-lettres as opposed to the dry details of scholarship. This last is generally accounted the peculiar work of German influence, and in opposition to this there is a demand for Gallic polish and that scientific connoisseurship of the English gentleman. Since, however, these men are thinking not of the main fact, but rather of certain insignificant excrescences of German work, and since after all nothing but the real work of investigation can lead to new achievements which justify in a real university any advancement to higher academic positions, there is no ground for fearing that this reactionary mood will exert any particularly harmful influence on more serious circles of workers. Such a movement may be even welcomed as a warning against a possible ossification of science. Particularly the college would be untrue to its ideals, if it were to forget the humanities in favour of scientific matters of fact.
The lectures naturally follow the principle of thorough-going specialization, and one who reads the Annual Report will probably be surprised to discover how many students take up Assyrian or Icelandic, Old Bulgarian, or Middle Irish. The same specialization is carried into the seminaries for the advanced students; thus, for instance, in the department of philosophy, there are special seminaries for ethics, psychology, metaphysics, logic, sociology, pedagogy, Greek, and modern philosophy. The theological faculty is the smallest. In spite of an admirable teaching staff there remains something still to do before the spirit of science is brought into perfect harmony with the strongly sectarian character of the American churches. On the other hand, the faculty of law is recognized as the most distinguished in the English-speaking world. The difference between the Anglo-American law and the Romano-German has brought it about that the entire arrangement and method of study here are thoroughly different from the German. From the very beginning law is taught by the study of actual decisions; the introduction of this “case system,” in opposition to the usual text-book system, was the most decisive advance of all and fixed the reputation of the law faculty. And this system has been gradually introduced into other leading schools of law. The legal course lasts three years, and each year has its prescribed courses of lectures. In the first year, for instance, students take up contracts, the penal code, property rights, and civil processes. Perhaps the departure from the German method of teaching law is most characteristically shown by the fact that the law students are from the very first day the most industrious students of all. These young men have passed through their rather easy college days, and when now they leave those early years of study in the elm-shaded college yard and withdraw to Austin Hall, the law building of the university, they feel that at last they are beginning their serious life-work. In the upper story of Austin Hall there is a large reading-room for the students, with a legal reference library of over sixty thousand volumes. This hall is filled with students, even late at night, who are quite as busy as if they were young barristers industriously working away on their beginning practice.
The German method is much more followed in the four-year medical course of studies, and still there are here striking differences. The medical faculty of Harvard, which is located in Boston on account of the larger hospitals to be found in the city, is at this moment in the midst of moving. Already work has been commenced on a new medical quadrangle with the most modern and sumptuous edifices. In somewhat the same way, the course of studies is rather under process of reformation. It is in the stage of experimentation, and of course it is true throughout the world that the astonishing advance of medicine has created new problems for the universities. It seems impossible now for a student to master the whole province, since his study time is of course limited. The latest attempt at reform is along the line of the greatest possible concentration. The student is expected for several months morning and night to study only anatomy, to hear anatomical lectures, to dissect and to use the microscope; and then again for several months he devotes himself entirely to physiology, and so on. Much is hoped, secondly, from the intuitive method of instruction. While in Germany the teaching of physiology is chiefly by means of lectures and demonstrations, every Harvard student has in addition during the period of physiological study to work one hundred and eighty hours on prescribed experiments, so that two hours of experimentation follow every one-hour lecture. In certain lines of practical instruction, especially in pathological anatomy, the American is at a disadvantage compared with the German, since the supply of material for autopsy is limited. Popular democratic sentiment is very strong against the idea that a man who dies in a public poor-house must fall a prey to the dissecting knife. The clinical demonstrations are not given in special university clinics, but rather in the large municipal hospitals, where all the chief physicians are pledged to give practical instruction in the form of demonstrations. In the third place, there is an increasing tendency to give to the study of medicine a certain mobility; in other words, to allow a rather early specialization. As to the substance itself which is taught, Harvard’s medical school is very much like a German university, and becomes daily more similar. In the American as in the German university, the microscope and the retort have taken precedence over the medicine chest.
Harvard has about five thousand students. Any boy who wishes to enter must pass, at the beginning of the summer, a six-day written examination; and these examinations are conducted in about forty different places of the country under the supervision of officers of the university. Any one coming from other universities is carefully graded according to the standard of scholarship of his particular institution. The amount of study required is not easily determined. Unlike the German plan, every course of lectures is concluded at the end of the year with a three-hour examination, and only the man who passes the examination has the course in question put to his credit. Whoever during the four, or perhaps three, college years has taken eighteen three-hour lecture courses extending through the year receives the bachelor’s degree. In practice, indeed, the matter becomes enormously complicated, yet extensive administrative machinery regulates every case with due justice. In the legal and medical faculties, everything is dependent on the final examinations of the year. In the philosophical two, or more often three, years of study after the bachelor’s degree lead to the doctorate of philosophy.
The graduate student always works industriously through the year, but the college student may be one of various types. Part of these men work no less industriously than the advanced students; while another part, and by no means the worst, would not for anything be guilty of such misbehaviour. These men are not in Harvard to learn facts, but they have come to college for a certain atmosphere—in order to assimilate by reflection, as they say. Of course, the lectures of enthusiastic professors and a good book or two belong to this atmosphere; and yet, who can say that the hours spent at the club, on the foot-ball field, at the theatre, in the Boston hotel, on the river or on horseback do not contribute quite as much—not to mention the informal discussions about God and the world, especially the literary and athletic worlds, as they sit together at their window seats on the crimson cushions and smoke their cigarettes? Harvard has the reputation through the country of being the rich man’s university, and it is true that many live here in a degree of luxury of which few German students would ever think. And yet there are as many who go through college on the most modest means, who perhaps earn their own livelihood or receive financial aid from the college. A systematic evasion of lectures or excessive drinking or card-playing plays no role at all. The distinctly youthful exuberance of the students is discharged most especially in the field of sport, which gets an incomparable influence on the students’ minds by means of the friendly rivalry between different colleges. The foot-ball game between Harvard and Yale in November, or the base-ball game in June, or the New London races, are national events, for which special trains transport thousands of visitors. Next to the historical traditions it is indeed sport, which holds the body of Harvard students most firmly together, and those who belong to the same class most firmly of all—that is, those who are to receive their A. B. in the same year. Year after year the Harvard graduates come back to Boston in order to see their old class-mates again. They know that to be a Harvard man means for their whole life to be the body-guard of the nation. They will stand for Harvard, their sons will go to Harvard, and to Harvard they will contribute with generous hands out of their material prosperity.
Harvard reflects all the interests of the nation, and all its social contrasts. It has its political, religious, literary and musical clubs, its scientific and social organizations, its daily paper for the discussion of Harvard’s interests, edited by students, and three monthly magazines; it has its public and serious parliamentary debates, and most popular of all, operatic performances in the burlesque vein given by students. Thousands of most diverse personalities work out their life problems in this little city of lecture halls, laboratories, museums, libraries, banquet halls, and club buildings, which are scattered about the ancient elm-shaded yard. Each student has come, in the ardour and ambition of youth, to these halls where so many intellectual leaders have taught and so many great men of the outside world have spent their student years; and each one goes away once more into the world a better and stronger man.
One thing that a European visitor particularly expects to find in the lecture room of an American university is not found in Harvard. There are no women students in the school. Women graduates who are well advanced are admitted to the seminaries and to scientific research in the laboratories, but they are excluded from the college; and the same is true of Yale, Columbia, Princeton, and Johns Hopkins. Of course, Harvard has no prejudice against the higher education of women; but Harvard is itself an institution for men. In an indirect way, the teaching staff of Harvard University is utilized for the benefit of women, since only a stone’s throw from the Harvard College gate is Radcliffe College, which is for women, and in which only Harvard instructors give lectures.
This picture of the largest university will stand as typical for the others, although of course each one of the great academies has its own peculiarities. While Harvard seeks to unite humanitarian and specialized work, Johns Hopkins aims to give only the latter, while Yale and Princeton aim more particularly at the former. Johns Hopkins in Baltimore is a workshop of productive investigation, and in the province of natural sciences and medicine Johns Hopkins has been a brilliant example to the whole country. Yale University, in New Haven, stands first of all for culture and personal development, although many a shining name in scholarship is graven on the tablets of Yale. Columbia University, in New York, gets its peculiar character from that great city which is its background; and this to a much greater extent than the University of Chicago, which has created its own environment and atmosphere on the farthest outskirts of that great city. Chicago, and Cornell University at Ithaca, the University of Pennsylvania, Ann Arbor in Michigan, Berkeley and Stanford in California are the principal institutions which admit women, and therein are outwardly distinguished from the large institutions of the East.
The male students from the West have somewhat less polish, but are certainly not less industrious. The Western students come generally out of more modest conditions, and are therefore less indifferent with regard to their own future. The student from Ann Arbor, Minnesota, or Nebraska would compare with the student at Yale or Princeton about as a student at Königsberg or Breslau would compare with one at Heidelberg or Bonn. Along with that he comes from a lower level of public school education. The Western institutions are forced to content themselves with less exacting conditions for entrance, and the South has at the present time no academies at all which are to be compared seriously with the great universities of the country.
Next to Harvard the oldest university is Yale, which a short time ago celebrated its two-hundredth anniversary. After Yale comes Princeton, whose foundation took place in the middle of the eighteenth century. Yale was founded as a protest against the liberal tendencies of Harvard. Puritan orthodoxy had been rather overridden at Harvard, and so created for itself a more secure fortress in the colony of Connecticut. In this the mass of the population was strictly in sympathy with the church; the free spirit of Harvard was too advanced for the people, and remained so in a certain way for nearly two centuries. Therein has lain the strength of Yale. Until a short time ago Yale had the more popular place in the nation; it was the democratic rallying-ground in contrast with Harvard, which was too haughtily aristocratic. Yale was the religious and the conservative stronghold as contrasted with the free thought and progress of Harvard. For some time it seemed as if the opposition of Yale against the modern spirit would really prejudice its higher interests, and it slowly fell somewhat from its great historic position. But recently, under its young, widely known president, Hadley, the political economist, it has been making energetic and very successful endeavours to recover its lost position.
The history of Columbia University, in New York, began as early as 1754. At that time it was King’s College, which after the War for Independence was rechristened Columbia College. But the real greatness of Columbia began only in the last few decades, with a development which is unparalleled. Under its president, Seth Low, the famous medical, legal, and political economical faculties were brought into closer relations with the college, the Graduate School was organized, Teachers’ College was developed, the general entrance conditions were brought up, and on Morningside Heights a magnificent new university quadrangle was erected. When Seth Low left the university, after ten years of irreproachable and masterly administration, in order to become Mayor of New York in the service of the Reform party, he was succeeded in the presidency by Butler, a young man who since his earliest years had shown extraordinary talents for administration, and who for many years as editor of the best pedagogical magazine had become thoroughly familiar with the needs of academic instruction. Columbia is favoured by every circumstance. If signs are not deceptive, Columbia will soon stand nearest to Harvard at the head of American universities. While Harvard and Yale, Princeton, Pennsylvania, and Columbia are the most successful creations of the Colonial days, Johns Hopkins and Chicago, Cornell and Leland Stanford are the chief representatives of those institutions which have recently been founded by private munificence. The state universities of Wisconsin, Michigan, Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, and California may be mentioned, finally, as the most notable state universities.
Johns Hopkins was an able railroad president, who died after a long life, in 1873, and bequeathed seven million dollars for a university and academy to be founded in his native city of Baltimore. The administrative council elected Gilman as its president, and it is Gilman’s memorable service to have accomplished that of which America was most in need in that moment of transition—an academy which should concentrate its entire strength on the furtherance of serious scientific investigation quite without concessions to the English college idea, without any attempt to reach a great circle of students, or without any effort to annex a legal or theological faculty. Its sole aim was to attract really eminent specialists as teachers in its philosophical faculties, to equip laboratories and seminaries in the most approved manner, to fill these with advanced students, and to inspire these students with a zeal for scientific productiveness. This experiment has succeeded remarkably. It is clear to-day that the further development of the American university will not consist in developing the special professional school, but will rather combine the ideals of the college with the ideals of original research. But at that time when the new spirit which had been imported from Germany began to ferment, it was of the first importance that some such institution should avowedly, without being hampered by any traditions, take up the cause of that method which seeks to initiate the future school-teacher into the secrets of the laboratory. Since Gilman retired, a short time ago, the famous chemist, Ira Remsen, has taken his place. A brilliant professor of Johns Hopkins, Stanley Hall, has undertaken a similar experiment on a much more modest scale, in the city of Worcester, with the millions which were given by the philanthropist Clark. His Clark University has remained something of a torso, but has likewise succeeded in advancing the impulse for productive science in many directions, especially in psychology and education.
In the year 1868, Cornell University was founded in the town of Ithaca, from the gifts of Ezra Cornell; and this university had almost exactly opposite aims. It has aimed to create a university for the people, where every man could find what he needed for his own education; it has become a stronghold for the utilitarian spirit. The truly American spirit of restless initiative has perhaps nowhere in the academic world found more characteristic expression than in this energetic dwelling-place of science. The first president was the eminent historian, Andrew D. White, who was appointed later to his happy mission as Ambassador to Berlin. At the present day the philosopher Shurman stands at the helm, whose efforts in colonial politics are widely known. Senator Stanford, of California, aimed to accomplish for the extreme West the same thing that Cornell had done for the East, when in memory of his deceased son he applied his entire property to the foundation of an academy in the vicinity of San Francisco. Leland Stanford is, so far as its financial endowment goes, probably the richest university in the country. As far as its internal efficiency has gone, the thirty million dollars have not meant so much, since the West has to depend on its own students and it has to take them as it finds them. In spite of this, the university accomplishes an excellent work in many directions under the leadership of the zoölogist Jordan, its possibly too energetic president. While its rival, the State University of California, near the Golden Gate of San Francisco, is perhaps the most superbly situated university in the world, Leland Stanford can lay claim to being the more picturesque. It is a dream in stone conjured up under the Californian palms. Finally, quite different, more strenuous than all others, some say more Chicagoan, is the University of Chicago, to which the petroleum prince, Rockefeller, has deflected some twelve million dollars. The University of Chicago has everything and offers everything. It pays the highest salaries, it is open the whole year through, it has accommodations for women, and welcomes summer guests who come to stay only a couple of months. It has the richest programme of collateral lectures, of university publications and of its own periodicals, has an organic alliance with no end of smaller colleges in the country, has observatories on the hill-tops and laboratories by the sea; and, whatever it lacks to-day, it is bound to have to-morrow. It is almost uncanny how busily and energetically this university has developed itself in a few years under the distinguished and brilliant presidential policy of Harper. One must admire the great work. It is possible that this place is still not equal to the older Eastern universities as the home of quiet maturity and reflection; but for hard, scholarly work it has few rivals in the world.
Johns Hopkins and Cornell, Stanford and Chicago, have been carefully designed and built according to one consistent plan, while the state universities have developed slowly out of small colleges more like the old institutions of Colonial days. Their history is for the most part uneventful; it is a steady and toilsome working to the top, which has been limited not so much by the finances of the states, but rather by the conditions of the schools in the regions about them. The largest state university is that of Michigan, at Ann Arbor, not far from Detroit. In number of students it is next to Harvard. One of its specialties is a homœopathic medical faculty in addition to the allopathic.
It would be a great mistake to suppose that, with the blossoming out of the large and middle-sized universities, all of which have colleges as one of their departments, the small colleges have ceased to play their part. Quite on the contrary; in a certain sense the small college situated in rural seclusion has found a new task to work out in contrast to the great universities. It is only in the small college that the young student is able to come into personal contact with the professor, and only there can his special individuality be taken into account by his alma mater. One scheme does not fit all the students, and not only in those regions where the homely college represents the highest attainable instruction of its kind, but also in many districts of the maturest culture, the college is for many youths the most favourable place for development. Thus the New England States would feel a great loss to the cause of culture if such old colleges as Williams, Brown, Amherst, and Dartmouth should simply deliver over its students to Harvard.
These smaller colleges fulfil a special mission, therefore, and they do their best when they do not try to seem more than they really are. There was the danger that the colleges would think themselves improved by introducing some fragments of research work into their curriculum, and so spoiling a good humanitarian college by offering a bad imitation of a university. Of course, there can be no talk of a sharp separation between college and university, for the reasons which we have emphasized many times before. It is necessary, as we have seen, that there should be a long continuous scale from the smallest college up to the largest university. It is true that many of the small institutions are entirely superfluous, and not capable of any great development, and so from year to year some are bound to disappear or to be absorbed by others. Many are really business enterprises, and many more are sectarian institutions. But in general there exists among these institutions a healthy struggle for existence which prospers the strongest of them and makes them do their best. The right of existence of many of the small and isolated professional schools is much more questionable. Almost all the best medical, legal, and theological schools of this order have already been assimilated to this or that college, and the growing together of the academies which started separately and from small beginnings into organic universities is in conformity with the centralizing tendency everywhere in progress in our time.
Many of the smaller colleges are, like all the state institutions, open to both sexes. Besides these, however, there thrive certain colleges which are exclusively for women. The best known of these are Bryn Mawr, Vassar, Wellesley, Smith, Radcliffe, and Barnard. Barnard College, in New York, stands in the same relation to Columbia University as Radcliffe College does to Harvard. Every one of these leading women’s colleges has its own physiognomy, and appeals rather to its special type of young woman. Vassar, Wellesley, Smith, and Bryn Mawr lie in quiet, retired little towns or villages: and the four years of college life spent together by something like a thousand blooming, happy young women between the years of eighteen and twenty-two, in college halls which are surrounded by attractive parks, are four years of extraordinary charm. Only Bryn Mawr and Radcliffe lay any special stress on the advanced critical work of the graduates. In Smith, Vassar, and Wellesley it is mostly a matter of assimilation, and the standard of scholarship is not much higher than that of the German Arbiturientenexamen, together with possibly one or two semesters of the philosophical faculty. In Wellesley, women are almost the only teachers; while in Bryn Mawr almost all are men, and in Smith the teachers are both men and women.
In statistical language, the following conditions are found to hold. If for the moment we put college and graduate schools together as the “philosophical faculty,” there studied in the year 1900 in the philosophical faculties, 1,308 students for every million inhabitants; in the legal faculties 166, in the medical 333, and in the theological faculties 106. Ten years previously the corresponding figures were 877, 72, 266, 112, respectively, and twenty-five years ago they were 744, 61, 196, and 120, respectively. Thus the increase in the last ten years has been a remarkable one; theology alone shows some diminution in its numbers. If we consider now the philosophical faculties more closely, we discover the surprising fact that in the last decade the male students have increased 61 per cent., while the female have increased 149 per cent. The degrees conferred in the year 1900 were as follows: college degrees of bachelor of arts—to men 5,129, to women 2,140. The degree of bachelor of science, which is somewhat lower in its standard, and requires no classical preparation, was given to 2,473 men and 591 women. The degree of doctor of philosophy to 322 men and 20 women. The private endowment of all colleges together amounts to 360 million dollars, of which 160 million consist in income-bearing securities. The annual income amounted to 28 millions, not counting donations of that year, of which 11 millions came from the fees of students, about 7 millions were the interest on endowments, and 7.5 millions were contributed by the government. Thus the student pays about 39 per cent. of what his tuition costs. The larger donations for the year amounted to about 12 millions more. The number of colleges for men or for both sexes was 480, for women alone 141. This figure says very little; since, in the case of many women’s institutions, the name college is more monstrously abused than in any other, and in the West and South is assumed by every upstart girls’ school. There are only 13 women’s colleges which come up to a high standard, and it may at once be added that the number of polytechnic and agricultural schools whose conditions for entrance correspond on the average to those of the colleges amounts to 43. Also these stand on many different levels, and at the head of them all is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Boston, which is now under the brilliant leadership of President Pritchett. Almost all the technical schools are state institutions.
There were, in the year 1900, 151 medical faculties having 25,213 students: all except three provide a four years’ course of study. Besides these, there were 7,928 dental students studying in 54 dental schools, and 4,042 students of pharmacy in 53 separate institutions. There were 12,516 law students, and 8,009 theological students. Out of the law students 151, and of the theological 181, were women.
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.