Scientific institution

“ The foundation of the Royal Institution at the end of the eighteenth century marks, perhaps, the point at which the importance of physical science began to impress the popular imagination. But great thinkers had long recognised the necessity of applying scientific method in the sphere of social and political investigation. ”

“ But, if a new idea is to be vigorously prosecuted, then a young and vigorous institution, specially organized to put the idea into effect, is necessary. The project of building up in our midst, at the most appropriate point, an organization of leading scientific investigators, for the single purpose of giving a new impetus to American science and, if possible, elevating the thought of the country and of the world to a higher plane, involves a new idea, which can best be realized by an institution organized for the special purpose. ”

“ Instead of multiplying such institutions, it would be wise to create scientific institutes for the larger and more important branches of science. In this direction the benefactors of education and science have still almost everything to do. It is, in fact, the field that promises the greatest returns and the greatest blessings to mankind. As examples of what such institutes signify, may be mentioned the Pasteur Institute in Paris, the Zoölogical Station at Naples, the Lick Observatory, and the Smithsonian Institution. ”

“ He desired to found in the United States, a land he never saw, an institution which should live in the memory of men when the titles of his ancestors, 125the Northumberlands and the Percys, were extinct and forgotten.
The institution is for the increase of knowledge among men. It assists scientific men in original research, and it publishes the results, which are sent to leading libraries, and are also accessible to scientists throughout the land. ”

“ As a result of this movement, which has been of great benefit in stimulating the growth of science in the country, many new journals of specialized character have come into existence from time to time. Further localization and specialization of scientific publication have 55resulted from the increased activity of scientific societies and academies at numerous centers and the springing into existence thereby of new organs of publication through them, as also through certain of the Government Departments, the Carnegie Institution, and certain universities and museums. ”

“ What at the beginning of the nineteenth century was a small textbook study of natural philosophy has since been subdivided into the two great sciences of physics and chemistry, and these in turn into numerous well-organized branches. Today these are taught, not from textbooks, but in large and costly laboratories, while manufacturing establishments and governments now find it both necessary and profitable to maintain large scientific institutions for chemical and physical research. ”

“ Science and scientific research and discoveries are the international agencies by which the riddles and miracles of the universe, in all their magnitude, are solved and explained. Institutions of learning, schools and universities are linked together by the uniformity of fundamental laws governing science and the dissemination of knowledge and discoveries. ”

“ It is thought by some persons who have given special attention to the subject, that the State ought to encourage such research and science in general, by appointing a Minister of Science possessing scientific knowledge and good administrative ability; a Scientific Council to advise our Governments in all important matters relating to science; and by establishing State laboratories for pure scientific inquiry, with discoverers of repute in them wholly engaged in research in their respective subjects. ”

“ While in our Society, as in the firmament, one star differed from another star in glory, yet among those ready to contribute to the program or discussion, we might then count many of those reckoned as authorities in their special lines of work and in many different fields.
As the body of scientific men in government service, or local educational institutions, increased with the increasing importance of scientific method and the evolution of the sciences themselves, new bodies sprang into existence, aiming to exploit special provinces of the realm of science. ”

“ Now, though I could state to a select few that department of human inquiry which engages me, and should rejoice at an opportunity so to do, I felt that it would be to make myself the laughing stock of the scientific community to describe to them that branch of science which specially interests me, inasmuch as they do not believe in a science which deals with the higher law. ”

“ The fundamental object in founding State laboratories should be to keep a staff of the most competent men wholly engaged in original research in pure science, and a secondary object might be to train assistants to become investigators. ”

“ The Council are of opinion that this Society would be omitting a principal means of the advancement of Science—the end for which all such associations exist—if it neglected the question of the Endowment of Research. To maintain a successful investigator in his labours, even though no results of immediate or obvious utility can be shown to spring out of them, is of interest to the community at large. ”

“ An institution of pure science, on the other hand, should be one the primary aim of which is to extend the bounds of man's knowledge of nature in a specified field, and to show something of the significance of the new knowledge for the higher life of mankind. ”

“ In obedience to the demands of sect or of locality, we have gone on multiplying institutions insufficiently endowed, wretchedly wanting in every thing necessary to scientific investigation, until we have now hardly three or four in possession of the means to present any new subject of study involving any outlay for investigation or for demonstration. The time has come when such provision should be made. ”

“ If this plan could be carried out in our old Universities it would produce most valuable results, because the governing, wealthy, and influential classes of this nation are chiefly educated at those institutions, and they would then acquire habits of more accurate scientific thought, and some knowledge of the nature and importance of scientific research, and of the essential dependence of national welfare upon it. ”

“ For have they not found fitting employment for the energies of many, who in their own departments stand in the foremost rank of scientific investigators? The scientific discoverer must ever lead the way. Applied science, coming after, takes up the thread of discovery, and once guided into a useful channel industries are created and commerce spreads. ”

“ For this reason, if on no higher ground, we have claimed that it is both the interest and the duty of the State to foster and reward scientific investigation. The time is not far distant, if it is not already at hand, when the scientific culture of a people will be one of the chief factors in determining its position among the nations of the world. ”

“ To be more definite, an institution of research in biology or in astronomy could justify its existence, in a democratic country like ours, only by making considerable additions to knowledge and then by showing in language comprehensible to the generally hut non-technically educated members of the community, something of the meaning of this knowledge for human beings in both the physical and the spiritual aspects of their natures. ”

“ Research Foundations.—All modern universities carry on through instructors and advanced students many departments of scientific research. The lines of research extend through a wide range of subjects—Chemistry, Biology, Physics, Anatomy, Physiology, Medicine, Geology, Agriculture, History, Sociology, and other departments of learning. These investigations have led to the discovery of new knowledge and the extension of learning to mankind. Outside of colleges and universities there have been established many foundations of research and many industrial laboratories. ”

“ Mere tentative trials, costly and laborious, with almost even chances for and against success, have taken the place of rigorous, careful, strictly scientific work, based upon definite and certain foundations. In short, the arts have suffered from the fact that neither chemistry nor physics can yet claim to be really an exact science. The question of the endowment of research, then, may well be put in this shape. Laboratories should be established in which adequate corps of thorough specialists shall coöperate in those investigations which individuals cannot undertake. ”

“ It is unnecessary to speak of what has been done during the last few years at our old Universities and great public schools, in the erection of laboratories, and in other ways for the promotion of science, because it has been for the purposes of instruction, and not of original research. No amount of ordinary instruction in science will remedy the evils caused by want of original inquiry, because such instruction does not produce new knowledge, but only disseminates that already possessed. ”

“ I shall not indulge in any imaginative anticipations of things still undiscovered in the scientific realm, I will only suppose that things already known and tested are systematically used all over the world, that the good knowledge we have already stored in our laboratories and libraries is really applied with some thoroughness and with some community of purpose to the needs and enlargement of life. ”

“ Is there evidence that there is an increase in the influence of science on the lives of our fellow-citizens and in the great affairs of the State? Is there an increased provision for securing the progress of scientific investigation in proportion to the urgency of its need or an increased disposition to secure the employment of really competent men trained in scientific investigation for the public service? ”

“ Perhaps it may be truly remarked, that, next to the establishment of institutions having either the promotion of science in general, or, what is still more practically efficacious in its present advanced state, that of particular departments of physical enquiry, for their express objects, nothing has exercised so powerful an influence on the progress of modern science as the publication of monthly and quarterly scientific journals, of which there is now scarcely a352 nation in Europe which does not produce several. ”

“ Nor does your committee understand that it is now proposed to depart from this policy; for the inquiry before us is really most pertinent to our special objects. It certainly can not be a matter of indifference to this body, from its own point of view, how science is dealt with in the great system of schools which has undertaken the task of molding the youthful mind of the country. We aim to advance science by the promotion of original investigation, which depends upon men prepared for the work. Do the schools of the nation, by their modes of scientific study, favor or hinder this object? ”

“ Here the functions of our Council would come into play, and it would have a great opportunity of demonstrating its usefulness as an organising body by inducing, whether by negotiation with individuals or with scientific corporations like the Royal Society, competent men of science to undertake the task of classifying the papers relating to their own special studies. Men of science, we may be certain, are fully aware of the importance of the undertaking, which is indeed designed for their special benefit ”

“ Nowadays all scientific knowledge has increased so largely that specialization is inevitable, and every investigator is confined more and more not only to one department of science, but as a rule to one small portion of that department. ”

“ As this natural order of dependence and development of the sciences is a great fact of nature, over which we have little or no control, and as a scheme for the simultaneous establishment of professorships of research in all the sciences, simple, complex, and concrete, would probably be too great an undertaking, the most proper course would be to commence with the simpler ones, such as those of mathematics, mechanics, physics, and chemistry, and perhaps biology. ”

“ The rapid growth of the physical and natural sciences during the 19th century, and the extension of scientific methods of inquiry and verification to subjects which were formerly taught by the traditional methods of authority, have led to the development of laboratories and libraries. ”

“ At the celebration of the semi-centennial anniversary of the foundation of the society, February 5, 1874, he delivered an address on the history of scientific discoveries and their practical applications in the half century, in which he pointed out how the work of the institute had contributed to the progress of science and the diffusion of knowledge. ”

“ It is reasonable to suppose that Universities should be fountains of new theoretical scientific knowledge, as well as be the disseminators of it, and that they (especially the old ones with their rich endowments) would be certain to promote scientific research, as being especially a part of their functions ”

“ In our universities and centers of learning he will find the exponents of the science still discussing whether it can ever have any laws, and even whether it should be founded on fact or romance. Let him take down any volume of history from its shelf, and endeavor to find any scientific clue therein to the natural laws underlying and controlling the majestic process of life which has unfolded itself in our western civilization, or to the natural laws that have directed the development of other social systems contemporaneous with it, or anterior to it. ”