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AN ILLUSTRATED JOURNAL PUBLISHED WEEKLY.

Vérité sans peur.

NEW YORK: THE SCIENCE COMPANY.

FRIDAY, JULY 2, 1886.

COMMENT AND CRITICISM.

THE BUREAU OF EDUCATION has made a valuable addition to our educational literature by its recent publication of a paper by Dr. E. M. Hartwell of the Johns Hopkins university, on physical training in American colleges and universities. Mens sana in corpore sano,' is perhaps as familiar as any classical quotation to collegiate trustees and professors, but in the past they have been inclined to trust too much to time and luck to give it a practical application. The progress we are now making in organized physical education is the most significant fact brought out by Dr. Hartwell's investigations. He shows that until 1859 no college in the country possessed a commodious and well-furnished building devoted to the purposes of physical training. In that year, however, Amherst, Harvard, and Yale built gymnasia. Amherst seems to have been the most progressive in this matter; and though its first gymnasium has since been replaced by a costly and much-improved building, yet from the first, physical exercise has been required there of all able-bodied students, and it has been directed by an educated physician with a seat in the faculty.

The Hemenway gymnasium at Harvard, and the supervision of Dr. Sargent, have not only given a great impetus to physical training there, but Dr. Sargent's system of directive exercise has been widely adopted. Since 1879, forty-eight institutions have fitted up their gymnasia with Dr. Sargent's apparatus; and his directions are now followed in very many of them, including Amherst, Cornell, Haverford, Johns Hopkins, Lehigh, and Swarthmore. The same system has just been introduced into Lafayette, and is projected at Vassar and the University of Vermont. The statistics and detailed information that accompany the paper are of great value and No. 178.-1886.

interest, but its general tenor is more valuable and interesting still. It shows that education physical, intellectual, and moral, as the phrase is - has become something more than a meaningless motto in many of our leading educational institutions.

THE TRUSTEES OF THE Elizabeth Thompson science fund have made the following grants for research from the income of the fund: 1°, H. M. Howe of Boston, Mass., seventy-five dollars, for investigations on the fusibility of slags from the smelting of lead and copper, to be carried on in the mining laboratories of the Massachusetts institute of technology; 2o, two hundred dollars to the New England meteorological society, for the working-out of results from the very numerous data which are now collected by the society concerning the movements of local storms; 3°, one hundred and fifty dollars to Samuel Rideal, Esq., of University college, London, for the continuation of Tyndall's experiments on the absorption of radiant heat by aromatic gases; 4°, five hundred dollars to Professor Rosenthal of Erlangen, Germany, for researches on the production and regulation of animal heat in health and disease, with special reference to fevers. As the number of applications was very large, the sums asked for amounting to about thirty thousand dollars, it became necessary for the trustees to refuse several applications which entirely commended themselves on account of the character of the applicants and the nature of the proposed work. The invidious task of selection was of course difficult in the extreme, so that it is unadvisable to give the grounds for the preferences finally adopted. On the other hand, the very number of applications increases the probability of the fund being devoted to the support of thoroughly fruitful researches. It is a somewhat unexpected turn of fortune's wheel which delivers an American endowment, even in part for the prosecution of research, at a German university; but it should not be overlooked that the fund was established primarily to further the utility of the proposed international scientific congress, and that it would violate the spirit of the trust to confine the grants to persons in this country. There is, so far as we are aware, no other endowment of science so generously wide in its scope: we hope, therefore, that it will always be employed to assist only the very best work, and that the trustees will so earn the faith of the public, that the endowment will be very largely increased by liberal patrons.

IN A RECENT NUMBER of Science (vol. vii. No. 160, supplement) we published several articles by Mr. J. A. Allen and others on the destruction of our native birds. Facts and figures were presented, tending to show that the killing of birds for millinery purposes and for food, together with their destruction in wanton sport, was liable to cause a serious diminution of our birds, and perhaps the extinction of some species useful to man or desirable for their song. The views thus expressed were indorsed by a committee of the Society of natural history of Cincinnati, in a report to that body; and this report has brought out a reply from Dr. F. W. Langdon in an address before the same society, in which he dissents from our conclusions. He points out that the birds most largely used for millinery purposes are those living by the seashore, such as gulls, terns, herons, and others, which are not song-birds nor beneficial to the farmer. As for the destruction of the birds in such places as the Everglades of Florida, he thinks these are doomed to extirpation in any case when the growth of population shall have led to the clearing and draining of the swamps. He admits, however, that some songbirds are made use of by milliners; but he gives

some results of his own and others' observation which seem to show that the number of such birds destroyed is not very great. He adds that most of our familiar song-birds, such as thrushes, wrens, and finches, are in little demand for millinery use, owing to their being usually of plain colors, but does not seem to notice that their skins may be dyed. Mr. Allen, in his article above referred to, had estimated the number of birds required in this country to meet the demands of the milliners at 5,000,000 a year; but Dr. Langdon thinks, that, even if this estimate is correct, the loss of that number of birds in a year will have no appreciable effect on the aggregate. He estimates the total number of birds on the continent at 3,000,000,000, and the annual increase at the

same number; and, allowing a second 5,000,000 for the demand from other countries than our own, he finds the percentage destroyed each year to be very small. He infers, therefore, that, even if all the birds destroyed were song-birds or birds useful to the agriculturist, the annual loss would have no practical effect on the fauna of the country at large.

MR. FRANCIS GALTON has been devoting the last year or two to a study of stature as an hereditary trait. From a large number of family records, in which the heights of the members of at least three generations are recorded, he attempts to assign the proportionate contributions of each ancestor towards the height of the descendant. He has formulated a law which partly opposes and partly supplements the common notion that the children of parents both possessing certain qualities will probably have the same qualities in even a greater degree than either parent. This law maintains that a constant tendency to mediocrity exists; that the qualities of the parents will not summate, but the average will be the probable result. Perhaps none of his ingenious researches will meet with more criticism than this, it seems to run counter to so many well-known facts of heredity. The research with regard to stature is only a typical one. In a more recent report he has carried over the same method to the consideration of the color of the eyes as affected by heredity, and shows the validity of the law in this field. Mr. Galton has presented his views in his presidential address before the British association and in articles in the Journal of the anthro

pological institute; but the full paper will appear in the Proceedings of the Royal society, and perhaps a judgment ought to be suspended until all the facts are in.

SEVERAL INSTANCES have been reported in the past few months where large numbers of persons have been made sick by ice-cream. The theories which have been advanced to explain this result have been many and various. By some it has been attributed to the absorption of copper from the vessels in which the cream was made; others have thought it due to decomposition of the gelatine which is now commonly used to give stiffness to the cream; while still others have thought it might be traced to disease in the cows from which the milk was obtained. Prof. V. С. Vaughan, of the University of Michigan, has recently investigated the poisoning of a number of persons by ice-cream at Newton, Mich., and is reported to have found tyrotoxicon present in the ice-cream which produced the sickness. This had been previously discovered by Professor Vaughan in pieces of cheese which had caused sickness, and which had been submitted to him for examination. Whether this poison is due to a germ, or to a chemical product, does not yet seem established; but it is but another proof of the possibilities of milk, either infected or decomposed, acting as a factor in disease, and it is not improbable that diarrhoeal diseases so common among the infantile population in the summer months may be caused, or at least aggravated, by milk which contains the tyrotoxicon.

THE BILL authorizing the President to appoint a commission to investigate yellow-fever and the methods proposed for its prevention has passed the senate, and, as there is now no opposition to its passage in the house, there is every probability of its becoming a law. In the mean while, Dr. Freire, who claims to have discovered the microbe of the disease and a method of inoculation to prevent its ravages, is reported to have performed the operation upon seven thousand persons living in localities where yellow-fever is prevailing in a most malignant form. Of this large number, but eight have died. During the same period, some three thousand uninoculated persons have succumbed to the fever. Should the bill to which reference has been made obtain a place in the statutes, these claims of Freire will be subjected to rigid investigation by the best American experts, and, if substantiated, will doubtless be the means of introducing his system, or a modification of it, into the United States, whenever yellowfever shall again appear in epidemic form.

IT HAS ALWAYS been difficult to understand how the germ theory of disease could be true, and yet the diseases which are due to germs could vary so much in virulence; at times being exceedingly mild, and again malignant in the highest degree. Dr. Sternberg, in a recent paper published in the Medical news, makes this very clear, thus removing what has to many seemed an insuperable objection to the acceptance of the germ theory. Germs which produce disease, that is, pathogenic germs, are subject to great modifica

tion as regards this power. Germs which to all appearances are the same, and which, so far as we know, are in fact identical in most particulars, may yet differ in their virulence; being extremely so under some circumstances, and but slightly so under others. It is for this reason that virus may be attenuated,' as it is termed, Thus the microbes which produce fowl-cholera in a fatal form may, after two or three months, lose this virulence, and still possess some pathogenic power. It is this principle of attenuation which enables experimenters to inoculate animals with the same microbe, but of gradually increasing virulence, until perfect protection, even against the most virulent form of the disease, is assured. A mild attack of scarlet-fever is explained, therefore, not on the ground that only a few microbes of the disease exist in the body of the individual attacked, for we know that this form of life multiplies with enormous rapidity, but by the probable fact that the microbes in this individual case possess a mild degree of virulence.

The further and deeper research is made into this domain of bacterial life, the more apparent does it become that disease-producing germs are wide-spread and abundant; and, if animals susceptible to any particular variety come in contact with that variety, it is easy to understand how disease may be contracted, even when no other animal has been brought in contact with them. For instance: the bacillus which causes fowlcholera is found in various parts of the world in putrid substances, and as a result epidemics of fowl-cholera are most frequent among fowl that are kept in unsanitary conditions. In the same way typhoid-fever and cholera may develop irrespective of human intercourse or fomites. Much of this may seem trite, but the tendency of the present day is to ignore filth as a factor in the production of germ-diseases, and to limit their causation to the presence of other similarly affected persons or animals, and to the articles which have been in contact with them. In helping to clear up the question, Dr. Sternberg has done good service.

THE ECONOMIC DISCUSSION IN SCIENCE.

IT is often doubted whether any good comes of polemical discussion in a periodical; and so obvious are the disadvantages under which those labor who would maintain a scientific position in popular debate, that many refuse to attempt it under any circumstances. Points are brought up which require lengthy elucidation, and that must be compressed into a single sentence which ought to be elaborated in an entire article. Then it is necessary to assume certain primary considerations; for, should it be endeavored to begin at the beginning and prove satisfactorily to the writers themselves every step taken, it would end in the construction of a complete scientific treatise which might fill several volumes. I believe the representatives of the new school of economics who undertook to prepare a series of articles for Science on a number of economic topics were fully aware of the difficulties of their task, and it is certain that the invitation of the editor of this journal was accepted with hesitation. Nevertheless, I must be allowed to express satisfaction with the general course of the discussion so far, and I am convinced that the readers of Science have obtained new and valuable ideas from the able articles both of Dr. Seligman and of Professor James. However familiar the views so well set forth in these articles may be to Professor Newcomb, there is no evidence of an acquaintance with them on the part of what might be called the educated American public, and it is unquestionable that they differ in radical particulars from the economic doctrines current in our magazine and newspaper literature. As a matter of course, these articles have been scarcely more than suggestive. It was not intended that they should be exhaustive, for that was impossible within the limits of the assigned space.

Professor Newcomb's article illustrates vividly the difficulties of a discussion of economic theories in a periodical. He sweeps over an immense field, touching on the development of economic doctrines, on the functions of the state, enlarging a little more on the relations of economics to ethics, and concluding with an irrelevant allusion to the condition of American shipping.

I should desire a volume - and a large one-to expose all the errors which, in my opinion, are implied in the article of the distinguished mathematician of the Johns Hopkins university. I will nevertheless endeavor to set a few of the points involved before the readers of Science in such a manner as to enable them to understand better the nature of the controversy, and to help them to follow out the argument in their own thoughts.

First, I must begin with a personal explanation. There seems to be an implication, though doubtless inadvertent, in the article of my learned colleague, that I am a socialist. True, I believe that the state has its industrial sphere, and that a larger one than many have been inclined to think; but I hold quite as strenuously that the individual has

as

a sphere of economic action which is an equally important one. I condemn alike that individualism which would allow the state no room for industrial activity, and that socialism which would absorb in the state the functions of the individual. Doubtless I have written more or less about socialism, and I have attempted to tell the truth about socialists, for I have not believed that the generally accepted lies about them could be of any avail to society. The university of which I have the honor to be a member has adopted for its motto the grand sentence, Veritas vos liberabit.' This I accept and have found a source of inspiration. I may go even further. I believe that the socialists have added to our stock of economic knowledge, and that we have a great deal to learn from them. On the other hand, it is safe to say, that, among those who are known as the new school of political economists, there is not a single one who could be called an adherent of socialism, pure and simple. It is, I believe further, safe to assert that pure socialism is advocated by no teacher of political economy in any American college or university. Professor Newcomb finds the present economic discussion yet incomplete, be it remembered - disappointing, and because more has not been said about the state, since "the main point in which the new school is supposed to differ from the other is that it looks with more favor upon government intervention in the processes of industry and trade." Of all the articles in this series, only one deals exclusively with the state; and yet the topics were selected by the writers of these articles. Is not this in itself a sufficient refutation of this popular supposition? What those who consented to write these articles desired was to place before the readers of Science an outline of their fundamental doctrines. They wished to present their opinions as they in reality are, not as people might suppose them to be. In my article I ventured the opinion that the radical difference between the old and the new school consisted, not in the views held of the state, but in the establishment of a new relation between ethics and economics. Others, possibly the majority, find the main difference in method, about which Professor Smith of Columbia is to contribute an article. It is necessary in all discussion to grasp the fundamental fact that what one believes, and what one is said to believe, are two quite different things.

Professor Newcomb claims that nothing new has been said in regard to the state, because every one is willing to admit that state intervention is right if it is useful. I am glad that it is admitted that state intervention is considered as merely a question of utility. It is a great deal to have gained that point, and to be able to quote Professor Newcomb in favor of the position. This is very different from the ordinary view, which is that the state has no right to participate in economic and industrial life. Some time ago Dr. Lyman Abbott wrote an article for the Century magazine in which he raised the question, whether the United States would not have done better to build and manage itself the Pacific railways rather than to give vast empires of land, and millions in money, to corporations to induce them to construct those great highways. His argument was presented with a great deal of force; but, in a later issue of the magazine, space was given for an objection. In what did the objection consist? Simply the dogmatic assumption that it was not the province of government to construct and manage railways. It was not regarded by the writer as essential to prove that it would not have been useful. When the question was raised recently in Philadelphia, whether the public gasworks should be sold to a private corporation, many newspapers thought it an argument to urge that it was not the function of a municipality to furnish gas. These are typical cases; and it is, I repeat, a satisfaction to be able to cite Professor Newcomb as an authority against such dogmatism.

Again: the article by Dr. James is criticised because there is so little to object to in it. This is another concession which must give satisfaction to many members of the new school. It differs widely from prevailing public opinion; and even so liberal and progressive a man as Professor Taussig thinks that Professor James 'goes too far.' A new theory of taxation is suggested by Dr. James, which is, I think, of far-reaching importance. It is not at present received either by our legislative or our judicial bodies.

Professor Newcomb's position as first stated, in regard to the development of economic thought, differs not in one whit from that of the new school. Adherents of this school all regard economics as a development, and, without exception, they value the works of their predecessors. They were the first in America to give a proper position to Adam Smith, Ricardo, and Malthus, by the introduction of courses in the history of political economy into our colleges. In the Statement of principles' of the American economic association, it is expressly declared that we appreciate the work of former economists.' Again: it is pleasant to be able to agree with Professor Newcomb; but, as a matter of fact, this is a different opinion from that which was a short time ago current. Writers, not long since, looked upon political economy as a complete and perfect science, true for all times and all places. Buckle and Lord Sherbrooke advocated this view; and even Professor Laughlin of Harvard, who probably does not regard himself at all

as a representative of the extreme 'orthodox' school, conveys the impression, in his useful little work on methods of instruction in economics, that there is, after all, not much constructive work to be done in our science. When Professor Newcomb, however, begins to criticise Dr. Seligman, I am unable to agree with him; for he speaks as if political economy were a mathematical science, with a body of truth unchangeable and eternal, like the statement, "A straight line is the shortest distance between two points." It is, according to this view, only the application of fixed principles which must be changed with time and place. Now, what is this body of mathematical truth in economics? There are some truisms in economics of that nature; but a large and important body of such principles I have never been able to discover, though I have searched for it long and diligently. It seems to me that Professor Newcomb fails to distinguish between mathematical sciences and those which are more descriptive in their nature, and have to do with growing, changing bodies.

This brings us naturally to Professor Newcomb's objection to my conception of economics as a science concerned with what ought to be, - an objection which it seems to me, though very natural in a mathematician, is not valid. I believe all sciences which treat of concrete organisms consider what ought to be as well as what is. The scientific physician treats of the perfect body as well as of the diseased, imperfect body. The biologist observes living forms, and expresses approval and disapproval. Natural sciences treat continually of purpose and adaptation to ends. Who can so well treat of social remedies as he who has studied society? Why stop when we have reached that point which first renders our science useful?

Professor Newcomb implies the argument, formerly a favorite one and still too common, that selfishness and enlightened philanthropy lead to the same ends. Observation does not confirm this. To a certain extent their courses will be parallel; but in important particulars there will be a divergence, and that divergence will be the difference between health and disease. His illustration of the treatment of the servant 'Cuffee' is pertinent. A careful observer will note a very different treatment of him by a selfish lady, and one who applies the dictates of ethics to her everyday life. This difference will affect the welfare of Cuffee' materially. I dismiss the question "Would he (Professor Ely) have Cuffee trained into a novelist, a chemist, or a metaphysician?" as not pertinent to the discussion, and as being, in fact, the exact opposite of what I did say. Not to weary the readers of Science, and not to make

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