trine is false and hateful. No college can live half-slave and yet half-free. Professors have no right to freedom unless the college as a whole is free. The freedom of professors is a myth unless it lives within the freedom of the college. I think that in the large, with very little reservation, the colleges are free, trustees and presidents as well as teachers. Donors and legislators are eager to give to institutions which no man can buy; that is their reason for giving. But public confidence in such freedom is not so easy to secure. Men carry the notions of property and ownership from other fields into the college field; they make a gift into a bargain, and so they fail to understand. The college must explain itself, must make its friends and foes alike perceive that it is one in purpose; honest in dealings, seeking to free men from ignorance and self-interest, seeking to make for men knowledge and self-criticism. It has no other purpose in any part or fragment of its being.

A harder relationship to understand is that of professors and propaganda. How shall men express opinions within the classroom or outside, and yet not make the college seem to be a partisan in public disputes. There are two very different ways in which it might be done. We might arrange that no professor should be a partisan on any public issue; he must remain a scholar, seeing the principles beneath the popular disputes, impartially making all sides clear, and yet not advocating any one of them. Or on the other hand, we might make up a college faculty of many advocates, at least one advocate for every important line of popular thought and impulse, trusting to each to push his cause as strongly as he can. In either case, the college as a whole would remain free and uncommitted. Which is the better plan? I wonder if we need to choose between them.

No one who loves a college can fail to

feel the attraction of the former plan. We like to think of scholars as standing apart from common quarrels, as looking deeper into life than common men, as finding the principles that underlie all common controversies. And so they do, and ought to do. And yet they do not by such study escape men's disagreements; the superficial quarrels reappear down in the lower levels of our thought; scholars are not agreed regarding the issues of our human life. They have their points of view, their attitudes of mind, their working theories, their own beliefs. Shall they be advocates of those beliefs? They cannot help it. But on the other hand, are there no limits to the forms their partisanship may take? I think there are. A man who advocates a view as if there were no other views, who finds the total truth in some mere fragment of an insight which has come to him, who sees and formulates no underlying principles beneath the strife of parties, is no proper college teacher. A college has a right to expect that every one who serves its cause, whatever else he do, shall keep its faith, its partial insight if you like, that truth is broader than a creed and deeper than the theories of any sect or class.

Shall college teachers be advocates or critics? I do not think we are ready to choose as yet. We want both types and are not ready to let either go. Most of our men prefer the impartial rôle; some have the zeal of advocates. And if the scholars keep themselves alive to human situations, and partisans hold fast to academic faith, we need not interfere. We should not like to see our 'ninety-three professors' declaring that all our acts are right right beyond question; nor do we wish our scholars to retire to quiet places, reflecting sadly on the weaknesses of fellow men. One thing we know whatever individual professors do or think, the college must

-

be impartial; it must not be an advocate; it must urge no cause but its own, the cause of knowledge and self-criticism.

There are, however, two or three remarks which may be made upon the is sue just considered.

Should we, in choosing teachers, take account of their opinions? If we are well enough acquainted with their work to pass on their appointments, we cannot well help knowing what they think. And yet we must not take account of it. We might, if we had found ourselves by blind unconscious preference appointing men of our own points of view, seek out opponents of ourselves to keep the balance. But on no other ground could we be justified in choosing a man because of his beliefs.

May teachers be dismissed because they hold and advocate this view or that? Such action would contravene the very spirit and purpose of a college. Professors must be good men, must study well, and teach successfully. If these requirements are met, no question can be raised regarding their opinions. The college has no fear of any opinions. It takes them all and judges them. If this be true, the tenure of the teacher is not that of one who is paid to work as he is told, who may be sent away if those who pay him do not like the work he does. His tenure is rather that of the judge who, by the very nature of the task assigned him, is placed beyond control or punishment by those on whom his judgment must be made.

I think there is a case against the allowing of college presidents to play the rôle of public advocate. So far as teachers are concerned, safety is found in numbers. No one of them can claim to represent the college as a whole. Whatever one of them may say, a dozen of his fellows will be found to take another point of view. But presidents are wont to speak each for his college.

Nothing about them is more obvious than just their singularity. And when a president takes his place in sect or party he takes the college with him as no professor can. I have no doubt that in the public mind one president, engaging in propaganda as a partisan, can do more harm in shaking confidence in academic fairness and impartiality than could a hundred teachers if they should storm and rave in every sect and party that the country knows. And if it should appear that, on the whole, the college presidents are very much alike in mental attitude, are in most cases committed to a single point of view regarding human problems, I think that very rightly the colleges would fail of influence upon the public mind, would lose the public confidence on which the doing of their work depends.

III

How shall we win and keep that confidence? That is the urgent problem for us and for the people we serve. How shall we teach unless the people listen? How shall they listen unless they know that we can teach and that we will?

Unless a people find, in colleges or elsewhere, some place of criticism, some place where truth is sought, where thought is free, there is no hope for freedom of the people.

The college must teach, and, first of all, must make the people understand what teaching is. How shall we let them know that we are building knowledge for their use, that we are serving every interest that they have and yet are slaves to none of them, that we will listen to every thought they bring and yet will weigh and value them with thoughts of other men in mind?

There is no other way than this: to study and to teach. And teaching is the attempt to make men free.

Physician, heal thyself!

I

As one approaches the great battleline of Europe, the most impressive fact is the existence of order. Every man has his definite work to do; there is no hurry, no confusion. At every crossroads there is a director of traffic, for all the world like Piccadilly Circus; every motor-truck, every field-gun, has its appointed road to follow. Chance is excluded as a factor. The same idea controls the actual fighting-on the land, in the water, in the air; everything is regulated by knowledge, that is, by science. This does not mean military science in its narrow sense far from it. It means that the general staffs realize the possibility of making use of scientific knowledge and the desirability of consulting scientific men.

Other features of the Front are striking: the magnitude of the preparations for battle, calling for the services of great business men; the attention paid to the social and physical well-being of the soldiers; and many other facts; but, the more one goes up and down the battle-line, the more one is amazed at the vital part which science is playing; and, the more closely one is allowed to ⚫ enter into the councils of the staffs, the more apparent it is that men of science have a field of usefulness never before opened to them.

A clear-seeing, clear-thinking American chemist, who was in Germany and England for many months in the year 1916, having unique opportunities for observation in both countries,

summed up the situation in a few words, which I heard him say soon after his return to this country. The substance of what he said was this: "There is not the least uncertainty as to how this war will end. At its beginning, the German General Staff summoned the scientists of Germany into consultation on every step; each branch of the army called to its service professors from the universities and scientific experts from its numerous factories; but, as the war continued, the policy changed, the regular officers of the army replaced the scientific advisers, and now the latter have little influence. In England, the course of events has been the reverse: in the beginning the Staff officers had their way; but, as the months passed, more and more were the men of science called to help in advice and in actual field duty, until now every man of note in the scientific life of England is at work for the country. No fact is more striking in the history of the war; none will have consequences so far-reaching.

I will add to this, that in France the work of scientific laboratories has always received due and proper recognition and does now.

This fact was realized more or less clearly in this country, and in the spring of 1916 the National Academy of Sciences, at the request of President Wilson, organized a National Research Council, composed of engineers, university professors, and government officials, to make a study of the relation of science to war, and to be prepared to help the government in all

scientific matters. Immediately after this country declared war, this Council decided to send to Europe a commission of six, who should see with their own eyes what the part of science in the war was. It was my privilege to be one of these. We reached France toward the end of April, and returned to America early in July. We were welcomed by the French government, and later by the English, and were given every opportunity to ask questions and to observe. M. Painlevé, the Minister of War, at our first official reception, said to us, 'Every door in France is open to you'; and so we found..

In what follows I shall confine myself largely to my personal impressions and experiences; and I am sure that all of my associates could tell stories even more interesting. I cannot speak with any clearness of the hospital and sanitation service, of the work of the different medical research committees, of the scientific work in connection with food, of the wonderful institutions for the reëducation of the maimed and blinded, although all these were studied by some of us; but even I, a physicist, was conscious of the evidences of the astounding progress made by the French and English doctors and scientists.

We were placed in contact at once, both in Paris and in London, with the men we wished to see, many of whom were, of course, friends of long standing. We were shown laboratories, manufactories, testing-grounds, and given every imaginable help to get answers to questions and to see undreamed-of investigations. It was a most wonderful experience, to see the mobilization of a nation. There was no one, be he artist, merchant, scientist, or workman, who was not giving his service to his country. Office-hours and work-hours were from seven o'clock on; they had a beginning, but I never saw their end. Each week had seven days; for France

and England know that they are at war, and modern warfare does not respect Sundays or festivals.

All the scientific work of the country is organized; there is no lost motion. There is complete coöperation between the staff, the men of science, and the manufacturers. The officer in the Army or Navy states his problem: he wishes to be able to locate the position of a battery of guns or a submarine; the scientific advisers instantly set to work. A geologist thinks his science can be of use to the general at the front; he is at once given an opportunity of proving the correctness of his idea. An airplane pilot thinks he can improve his machine; a manufacturer, without a day's delay, makes the alteration desired. It is wonderful. A whole nation at war is an awe-inspiring sight.

In Paris, which is now the centre of France, as never before, we received our theoretical instruction. We were interested in knowing about maps, for instance. We called, by appointment, to see the chief officer; he received us and at once gave us a lecture, with the clarity and breadth of view of a master, on the administration under his charge, telling us of each stage in the process of acquiring knowledge of the enemy's country and putting this on the printed map. We asked for more details, and all were explained. Then we were shown the actual working of the machinery; all the instruments, the organization of the personnel, the printing processes themselves.

Or, we wished to know about airplanes. We were shown the experimental laboratories and wind-tunnels, the manufactories, the new engines undergoing their various tests, the aviation fields; and finally, as an illustration of how air-planes were used, we were shown the system for the defense of Paris against raids through the air. So it was with respect to every sub

ject. Nowhere were we more impressed than in Paris by the fact that the French are a serious people. Each man is keen in his profession, earnest in his work, eager to talk about it to any one like himself, anxious to be of help in any way, and frank in describing defects or lack of perfection. The French army officer is the most wonderful man I met in Europe.

In England, too, our experiences were similar, only different in ways one expected, knowing the English people. In that country we visited individuals, rather than departments. The attitude of an Englishman toward his work is so different from that of a Frenchman; on the face of things, he is not proud of his achievements, he would rather show you a series of failures than the final success.

One incident among many will illustrate this. We wished to see the great aviation field at St. Omer; and, on our arrival, the officer in charge asked me what I would like to see. I said, among other things, air-plane instruments. His reply was, 'Right-o. Come over here. In this shed I have all of our brokendown instruments. What do you think of a government which would send us such things?' Finally, after due effort on my part, we were shown the instruments with which he was satisfied.

After we had been taken all over the field, we were about to leave, when I saw, a hundred feet away, what looked like a new type of air-plane; and I asked what it was. He was delighted to show it to me; it was the very latest machine. He told me what a surprise it had been for the Germans, and what a great success. It was the machine actually used by Captain Ball in running up his record of destroyed German machines to over forty. Now, this young officer simply could not have shown me that machine on his own initiative; he was so proud of it that

he would have considered it a form of boasting, of 'side'; but the minute I asked questions, he was free of all responsibility. One can easily see that this quality of an Englishman makes it necessary for the visitor to know beforehand what he wishes to see. The latter is helped, though, by the intense frankness of an Englishman after his confidence is once secured, and by his deep pleasure in the fact that his brethren, the American people, are at war by his side, and share his ideals.

After several weeks of preparation we were taken to the actual battlefront, and shown how, in real hourly conflict, the methods and apparatus of science are applied. In Paris and London we learned the theory; at the front we saw the practice. Each confirmed the other. I was for five days the guest of a French army, passing from Rheims to Verdun; and for five days at the British headquarters, being taken along the line from Arras nearly to Ypres. I can truly say that the excitement, the mental stimulus, of seeing what the various applications of science to war meant rendered me unconscious of everything else. Shells often fell near us, they were nearly always passing over us eastward; we would fall and stumble into and out of shell-holes; we were in the midst of the horrors of a recent battlefield; none of these things made any real impression. No one, who has not had a similar experience, can picture the way in which one's senses are all deadened except those being used for the purpose in hand.

II

It is difficult to make a beginning in telling of what I saw of the uses of science. It must not be thought that I can in one article, or even a dozen, tell the whole story. I think it safe to say that there is no branch of science