PROSPECTUS OF SCIENCE FOR 1883.
Under this title an illustrated journal will be published weekly, to which the attention of scientific men and the educated public is invited.
Science will be a strictly independent journal, devoted to the advancement of knowledge and scientific research in America, and will be technical only in so far as the subject-matter may require. On the one hand it will claim the support of scientific men as the most available channel for the early publication of condensed results of their researches, and on the other it will appeal to the intelligence of the general public by its careful exposition of scientific discovery, while both will profit by its weekly reports of scientific progress, drawn from original sources of the very latest date, and from all parts of the world.
Science will offer a ready and rapid means of intercommunication between the scattered scientific men of America, which they have never yet enjoyed, and will endeavor to become, in a high sense, the exponent of the best scientific thought of the country. By its impartial reviews of scientific literature, both native and foreign, it will be welcomed by every person of ordinary culture. Particular attention will be paid to current periodical literature and the proceedings of learned bodies, which give the latest results of scientific study; arrangements have been made for their early receipt, often in advance of ordinary publication; and the miscellaneous material so obtained will be carefully digested, and presented under specific heads. This prominent feature, which has never before been introduced in a weekly journal, will be particularly attractive to the specialist, in whatever branch, who will at once know where to look for the latest information about all the more important work in his own field of investigation.
Science purposes to furnish original articles by the most capable writers on the results of scientific research, to urge the importance of scientific education, and to illustrate the applications of scientific principles to all matters pertaining to national progress and practical affairs of every kind. The scope of Science will be as broad as its name: in every field of inquiry where the scientific method is adopted, it will hope to enter. Chronicler of the latest discoveries, but without affecting to hold a judicial position, it will indicate their relation to current thought and philosophy, as well as to the exigencies of daily life, in a fearless yet reverent spirit,—not too hasty in supporting plausible hypothesis, but ever open to the truth.
To promote one of its chief objects, and as a distinctive feature of the journal, Science will give its hearty support to those who are endeavoring
