the rapid
invasion of the most important fields of thought by the methods of
exact science. It is only a few years since it was remarked of
Professor Karl Pearson's mathematical investigations into the laws of
heredity, and the biological questions associated with these laws, that
he was working almost alone, because the biologists did not understand
his mathematics, while the mathematicians were not interested in his
biology. Had he not lived at a great centre of active thought, within
the sphere of influence of the two great universities of England, it is
quite likely that this condition of isolation would have been his to
the end. But, one by one, men were found possessing the skill and
interest in the subject necessary to unite in his work, which now has
not only a journal of its own, but is growing in a way which, though
slow, has all the marks of healthy progress towards an end the
importance of which has scarcely dawned upon the public mind.

Admitting that an organized association of investigators is of the
first necessity to secure the best results in the scientific work of
the future, we meet the question of the conditions and auspices under
which they are to be brought together. The first thought to strike us
at this point may well be that we have, in our great universities,
organizations which include most of the leading men now engaged in
scientific research, whose personnel and facilities we should utilize.
Admitting, as we all do, that there are already too many universities,
and that better work would be done by a consolidation of the smaller
ones, a natural conclusion is that the end in view will be best reached
through existing organizations. But it would be a great mistake to jump
at this conclusion without a careful study of the conditions. The brief
argument--there are already too many institutions--instead of having
more we should strengthen those we have--should not be accepted without
examination. Had it been accepted thirty years ago, there are at least
two great American universities of to-day which would not have come
into being, the means devoted to their support having been divided
among others. These are the Johns Hopkins and the University of
Chicago. What would have been gained by applying the argument in these
cases? The advantage would have been that, instead of 146 so-called
universities which appear to-day in the Annual Report of the Bureau of
Education, we should have had only 144.