on a sound commercial basis. It is said that one chemical firm employs three hundred doctors of philosophy to carry on scientific investigations. Research has hitherto been forwarded mainly by the universities, where again Germany has led the way. The professorship is given as a reward for successful investigations, and the holder of a chair is expected to devote himself to investigation as well as to teaching. There is a tendency to permit certain professors to engage almost exclusively in research. Thus the astronomical observatories of Harvard, Chicago and California universities are purely research institutions. A further step has been taken in the endowment of institutions, such as the Carnegie Institution and the Rockefeller Institute, explicitly for research. The most logical and important advance, however, consists in the direct conduct of research by the government. As the government should control monopolies, so it should conduct the work which is not for the benefit of a single individual, but for the people as a whole. There are of course no end of difficulties in the control of monopolies or the conduct of research by a municipality, state or nation; but it is exactly these difficulties that it is our business to overcome. And we may congratulate ourselves that our national government is at present accomplishing more for research and the applications of science than the government of any other nation.
THE WORK OF THE CARNEGIE INSTITUTION
The most important private foundation for the promotion of research is the Carnegie Institution of Washington, established four years ago by Mr. Andrew Carnegie with an endowment yielding an annual income of $500,000. The fourth year book, which has been recently issued, is of special interest as it is the first under the presidency of Dr. R. S. Woodward. The work of the year indeed was mainly fixed before the president entered on his office, but in his report to the trustees he gives some indications of the policy that he will recommend. He favors large projects carried on under the auspices
