THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE GROVE KARL GILBERT FROM the time of Benjamin Franklin and Count Rumford, America has produced distinguished men of science; but it is only in recent years that it has rivalled the older na tions in research work. The two sciences first to attain this position were astronomy and geology, in which opportunities for research work were opened through the endowment of observatories and through the state and national support of geological surveys. When the United States Geological Survey was organized in 1879, Grove Karl Gilbert had been for eight years engaged in the survey of the western territories under Wheeler and Powell. He was not only a member of the survey from its organization until his death, but shared in the work leading up to its organization, and was in large measure responsible for its admirable methods and results. During this long period Gilbert represented the highest ideals of scientific work, careful observation and sound judgment, philosophical broadness, complete straightforwardness. Gilbert was born in Rochester in 1843, his father being the portrait painter, Grove Sheldon Gilbert. After graduating from the University of Rochester, he was for some time engaged in Ward's Natural Science Establishment, the training school for a number of distinguished naturalists. In 1869, he began his geological work on the Ohio Geological Survey under Newberry. At that time, when only twentyeight years of age, he prepared maps showing the ancient glacial waters in the Maumee Valley, the first ever made of ancient lake beaches. His later important work on Lake Bonneville describes the large predecessor of the present Great Salt Lake, which existed in glacial times and overflowed northward to the Columbia River. One of Gilbert's most important early papers was his report on the Henry Mountains published in 1877, describing a new type of mountains, originally areas of sedimentary strata lifted by the injection of lava from beneath, to which the name laccolith is now given. Each of the large number of papers and monographs prepared by Gilbert during his fifty years of scientific activity contains a contribution to the subject. Professor Herman LeRoy Fairchild, of the University of Rochester, the early home of Gilbert, at a memorial meeting held by the Rochester Academy of Sciences, said: He Dr. Gilbert's mind was of the reflective, philosophic type. He sought for the explanation and relationship of phenomena. His calm judgment and clear discrimination joined to a spirit of fairness and with gentle manners caused him to be much sought as a critic and helper. was a sort of father-adviser to the Doubtless members of the survey. much of his thought has found expression in the writings of the younger men who revered and loved him. The writer of this appreciation never heard him say a harsh word of any one. Gilbert was twice president of the Geological Society of America, no other American geologist having received the honor of a second election. He was president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the American Society of Naturalists. On the approach of the seventy-fifth anniversary of his birth on May 6. his friends were asked to send to the Geological Survey letters of congratulation to be handed to him on that day, but he died on May 1. future development. Paris" prepared by a number of leading French scholars and to a certain extent addressed to the American student. The publication of such a volume at the present time THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS bears witness to the fine spirit of THERE was published last year an the French people in maintaining appreciation by American scholars the historic institutions of the of "Science and Learning in country and planning for their France" with a survey of opportunities for American students in Professor Durkheim, who conFrench universities. The volume is tributes the chapters on the history edited by Professor John H. Wig- and the organization of the univermore, of Northwestern University, sity, tells us that Paris is the oldest at the time of its preparation presi- and largest of the world's universident of the American Association of ties. It is a position for legitimate University Professors, and contains pride, even though the margin is articles on French contributions to not large in either direction. In the several departments of scholar- respect to size, comparisons are diffiship and science by leading Amer- cult, for it depends on which of the ican students with an introduction educational institutions of a city are by Dr. Charles W. Eliot. Appendices included and on how the students give practical details concerning edu- are counted. According to Minerva, cational advantages for American the University of Paris had, before students in France and the organ- the war, 17,512 students, followed by ization and degrees of the institu- Berlin with 14,034, Moscow with tions of higher learning. 9,516 and Petersburg with 8,955. There has now been issued under It will now be the United States the auspices of the council of the rather than Russia which will rival University of Paris a volume en- Paris in the size of its institutions. titled "La Vie Universitaire à Apart from summer school and ex THE SORBONNE AS BUILT BY RICHELIEU IN 1642. The Church contains the Tomb of Richelieu. From an engraving by Aveline. tension courses Columbia had in poor students were endowed. The 1916, 7,327 students, Harvard 5,226, Michigan, 6,276 and California 6,467. But the different institutions for higher learning in Boston or in New York, if their students were combined, would in size rival or surpass Paris and Berlin. Sorbonne was founded in 1303 by Robert de Sorbon for theological students, and was rebuilt by Richelieu in 1627. It survived as a school of theology until the revolution, and in a sense became the university, which for centuries was controlled by the Jesuits, while the forward movement of science and letters proceeded outside, largely under the auspices of the academies. French education was centralized Salerno, a medical school in the ninth century, may claim to have been the earliest of universities, but it was finally closed in 1817. The universities of Paris and Bologna arose in the course of the twelfth and made professional and practical century, but Paris claims a slightly by Napoleon, and it was only under earlier organization. Bologna was primarily a law school controlled by the students, Paris a school of theology and philosophy controlled by the masters. the third Republic that Paris once again became a great university and the universities of the provincial cities were recreated. The Sorbonne has been rebuilt and Abelard, teaching first in the enlarged threefold, and made the adcathedral school of Nôtre Dame, at- ministrative center of the university, tracted crowds of students. He whose various buildings are grouped founded other schools and other about it. Some pictures are here teachers established schools from reproduced from the book which are which gradually arose the University of interest in relation to the archiof Paris. In the thirteenth century tectural developments of American and later, colleges or dormitories for universities. EXAMINATION HALL OF THE FACULTY OF LETTERS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS. |