ectricity from a mere academic
pursuit to a tremendous force of civilization. Chemistry, although
supposed to have been a completed science, was scarcely begun. Herbert
Spencer's _Synthetic Philosophy_ and Darwin's _Origin of the Species_
had not yet been published. Huxley and Tyndall, the great experimental
scientists, had not published their great works. Transportation with a
few slow steam-propelled vessels crossing the ocean preceded the era of
the great floating palaces. The era of railroad-building had only just
started in America. Horseless carriages propelled by gas or
electricity were in a state of conjecture. Politically in America the
Civil War had not been fought or the Constitution really completed.

The great wealth and stupendous business organization of {472} to-day
were unknown in 1850. In Europe there was no German Empire, only a
German Federation. The Hapsburgs were still holding forth in Austria
and the Hohenzollerns in Prussia and the Romanoffs in Russia. The
monarchial power of the old regime was the rule of the day. These are
institutions of the past. Civilization in America, although it had
invaded the Mississippi valley, had not spread over the great Western
plains nor to the Pacific coast. Tremendous changes in art and
industries, in inventions and discoveries have been going on in this
generation. The flying-machine, the radio, the automobile, the
dirigible balloon, and, more than all, the tremendous business
organization of the factories and industries of the age have given us
altogether a complete revolution.

_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.

Prominent among those in the United States are The Carnegie Corporation
and The Rockefeller Foundation, which are devoting hundreds of millions
of dollars to the service of research, for the purpose of advancing
science and directly benefiting humankind. The results play an
important part in the prot