be found for a discourse on the subject than the preceding
quotation. In saying that there should be a thousand investigators of
disease where there is now one, I believe that Professor Lankester
would be the first to admit that this statement was that of an ideal to
be aimed at, rather than of an end to be practically reached. Every
careful thinker will agree that to gather a body of men, young or old,
supply them with laboratories and microscopes, and tell them to
investigate disease, would be much like sending out an army without
trained leaders to invade an enemy's country.

There is at least one condition of success in this line which is better
fulfilled in our own country than in any other; and that is liberality
of support on the part of munificent citizens desirous of so employing
their wealth as to promote the public good. Combining this
instrumentality with the general public spirit of our people, it must
be admitted that, with all the disadvantages under which scientific
research among us has hitherto labored, there is still no country to
which we can look more hopefully than to our own as the field in which
the ideal set forth by Professor Lankester is to be pursued. Some
thoughts on the question how scientific research may be most
effectively promoted in our own country through organized effort may
therefore be of interest. Our first step will be to inquire what
general lessons are to be learned from the experience of the past.

The first and most important of these lessons is that research has
never reached its highest development except at centres where bodies of
men engaged in it have been brought together, and stimulated to action
by mutual sympathy and support. We must call to mind that, although the
beginnings of modern science were laid by such men as Copernicus,
Galileo, Leonardo da Vinci, and Torricelli, before the middle of the
seventeenth century, unbroken activity and progress date from the
foundations of the Academy of Sciences of Paris and the Royal Society
of London at that time. The historic fact that the bringing of men
together, and their support by an intelligent and interested community,
is the first requirement to be kept in view can easily be explained.
Effective research involves so intricate a network of problems and
considerations that no one engaged in it can fail to profit by the
suggestions of kindred spirits, even if less acquainted with the
subject than he is himself. Intelli