THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE TWO GREAT UNIVERSITY PRESIDENTS educational leaders, President Eliot, of Harvard, and President Gilman, of the Johns Hopkins. The oldest of our universities, with its high traditions, its faculty of eminent scholars and its alumni throughout the country, and THE development of the American university during the last quarter of the nineteenth century is perhaps the most important chapter in our recent history. In this remarkable movement the youngest of our universities, unentwo institutions have led, and their tangled by precedents and engagements, prominence is personified in two great free to plan its work and choose its men, were the institutions best placed Institute of Technology when called to to lead the way, but they might not have done so had they not found the right presidents at the right time. From the point of view of this journal it is worth emphasis that both owed their preparation to scientific training and teaching. Dr. Eliot was professor of chemistry at the Massachusetts the presidency of Harvard, and Dr. Gilman was professor of geography at Yale when he took up administrative work. Dr. Gilman resigned the presidency of the Johns Hopkins in 1901, on reaching the age of seventy years and after twenty-six years of office. His death last month recalls vividly his great services to higher education. Dr. Eliot has now resigned the presidency of Harvard to take effect next spring, when he will have served forty years in the office, and will be in his seventyfifth year. Mr. Gilman was at the time of his resignation in full vigor of body and mind and was able afterwards to undertake the difficult task of organizing the Carnegie Institution, while performing many other public services. President Eliot has never seemed more competent to direct the affairs of a university than at present; there has not during the past forty years been a time when he has been so gladly followed as a leader. He is likely to remain for years to come the chief influence at Harvard and the leading private citizen of the United States. shares its leadership with other institutions and will probably fall behind the greater of the state universities. There is more instinctive admiration for the puritan aristocrat than for the opportunist, but in so far as Mr. Eliot stands for the plan of free electives, for culture prerequisite to the professional school, and Mr. Gilman for a group system of studies leading chiefly to the professional school and research, the majority of scientific men will side with the latter. Mr. Eliot's position could only be filled by a man of equal distinction after forty years of service. It is probably well that it can not be filled. The constitution of the state of Massachusetts places measures before men. It is better for the university to be a democracy of scholars, rather than for its scholars to be subject to the will of one man. The Harvard corporation will not purposely reorganize the university on a democratic and representative basis, but they will probably contribute to this end by the president whom they will elect. SCIENTIFIC ITEMS WE record with regret the death of O. T. Mason, head curator of anthropology in the U. S. National Museum; of Dr. Francis H. Snow, formerly chancellor and professor of entomology in the University of Kansas, and of Professor Berger, the eminent French surgeon. At the inaguration of Mr. Gilman as president of the Johns Hopkins University on February 22, 1876, Mr. Eliot said: "In the natural course of your life you will not see any large part of the real fruits of your labors; for to build a university needs not years only, but generations." This is only partly true. The traditions and ideals of the university are a long growth, but they may be transplanted to a new soil and flourish there. Relatively to other institutions at least, it is probable that the Johns Hopkins will never again be so great as it was in the eighties, and Harvard will never again be so preeminent as it is at the close of Mr. Eliot's administration. The seven professors on the faculty of the Johns THERE was held at the Sorbonne in Hopkins at the beginning far surpassed Paris, on October 4, a meeting in memthe average of any present faculty, and ory of the great chemist, Marcellin the hundred students in the early years, Berthelot. M. Raymond Poincaré made the average of any present student an address on his work, and was folbody. This great feat was again re- lowed by M. Fallière, president of the peated by Mr. Gilman when the med- Republic.-A bronze tablet to the memical school was organized. Harvard ory of the late Major James Carroll, has accomplished more in the past eminent for his work on yellow fever, forty years than during the preceding was unveiled in the main medical buildcenturies of its history. It set standing of the University of Maryland, on ards of freedom and culture when such November 11. Dr. William H. Welch standards were most needed. It now delivered the principal address. SIR ARCHIBALD GEIKIE, The Eminent Zoologist, elected to the Presidency of the Royal Society. By the will of the late Grace M. Kuhn, Harvard University receives $175,000 to endow a department of biological chemistry.-The Draper's Company will erect for Oxford University an electrical laboratory at a cost of £22,000 and will give an additional sum of £1,000 for its equipment. INDEX NAMES OF CONTRIBUTORS ARE PRINTED IN SMALL CAPITALS Aborigines, Prehistoric, of Minnesota Administration, Academic Aspects of, Administrative Methods in American Experiments with, S. P. Langley, 462 American, Association, the Hanover Celibate Education To-day, E. S., 423 CHAMBERLAIN, CHARLES JOSEPH, Monte CHROWDER, THOMAS COCKERELL, T. D. A., Florissant, a Miocene Pompeii, 112; Modern As- College Standardization, W. LE CONTE Congresses, International, and Perma- ARNOT, RAYMOND H., The Industries CRAMPTON, HENRY E., Zoology, 441 Athletes, Scholars and the Average Attraction, Social, The Laws of, SIMON Bacteriological Study of Soiled Paper Biology, Modern, Aspects of, T. D. A. Botany, A Biographical History of, at Boyden Department of the Harvard BROWN, ORVILLE HARRY, A Physiolog- Crimes of Violence in Chicago and in Crops, The Rotation of, SAMUEL Dartmouth College and the Summer Meeting of the American Association 32 Democracy, the Public School Teacher Dublin Meeting of the British Associa- Earth and the Sun, the Age of, and the History of the Conservation of En- Blight on, JAMES P. MUNROE, 340; Energy, The History of the Conserva- Canadian Wheat, JOHN WADDELL, 523 ORVILLE HARRY BROWN, 81 |