Besides these wandering meetings, finally, there are the local societies. Of these, the veteran is the Academy in Philadelphia. It was founded by Franklin in 1743, and so far as its membership goes, may claim to have a national character. In a similar way the American Academy, founded in 1780, has its home in Boston. Then there are the New York Academy, the Washington Academy, which has recently enlarged so as to include members from the whole country, and which ultimately will probably merge into the National Academy; the academies of Baltimore, Chicago, New Haven, and a hundred smaller associations, which for the most part are not merely interested in spreading scientific information, but in helping on the results of science.
We cannot hope to call the complete roll here of scientific production. Our purpose was merely to relate some of the favourable and unfavourable influences under which the American has to make his contribution to the science of the day. Merely for a first orientation, we may give some more detailed accounts in a few departments. At first sight, one might be tempted to give a sketch of present-day production by directly depicting the production with reference to the special higher institutions. Much more than in Germany, the results of scientific research are brought before the public eye with the official seal of some university. Every large educational institution publishes its own contributions to many different sciences; thus, the University of Chicago, which perhaps goes furthest in this respect, publishes journals of sociology, pedagogy, biblical studies, geology, astronomy, botany, etc.; and, besides these, regular series of studies in science, government, classical philology, Germanic and Romance languages, English philology, anthropology, and physiology. Johns Hopkins University publishes mathematical, chemical, and biological magazines; a journal for experimental medicine, one for psychiatry, for modern philology, for history, and Assyriology. Among the periodical publications of Harvard University, the astronomical, zoölogical, cryptogamic, ethnological, Oriental, classical philological, modern philological, historical, and economic journals are the best known. Columbia, Pennsylvania, and several other universities publish equally many journals. There are also a great many books published under the auspices of institutions of learning, which relate to expeditions or other special matters. Thus, for instance, Yale University, on the occasion of its two-hundredth anniversary in 1901, published commemorative scientific papers by its professors in twenty-five large volumes; the papers themselves ranging from such subjects as the Hindu epic and Greek metre to thermo-dynamics and physiological chemistry.
The various universities have always been known to have their scientific specialties. That of Johns Hopkins is natural science; of Columbia, the science of government; of Harvard, literature and philosophy. But the universities are, of course, not confined to their specialties; for instance, Johns Hopkins has done very much in philology, Columbia in biology, and while Harvard has been famous for its literary men, like Longfellow, Holmes, Norton and Child, it has also had such distinguished men on its faculty as the zoölogist Agassiz, the botanist Gray, and the astronomer Pickering.
It may be more natural to classify scientific production according to the separate sciences. The list is too long to be given entire. The venerable subject of philosophy is generally placed first in the university catalogues of lectures. This subject shows at once how much and how little is being done. A German, to be sure, is apt to have false standards in this matter; for if he thinks of German philosophy, he recalls the names of Kant, Schopenhauer, Fichte, and Hegel; and he asks what America has produced to compare with these. But we have seen that the work of productive science was commenced in the New World only a few decades ago, and for this reason we must compare the present day in America with the present day in Germany; and to be just, we should compare the American scholar only with the younger and middle-aged Germans who have developed under the scientific conditions of the last thirty years—that is, with men not over sixty years old. Young geniuses are not plentiful, even in Germany to-day; and not only are men like Kant and Hegel lacking in philosophy, but also in other departments of science; men like Ranke and Helmholtz seem not to belong to our day of specialization. A new wave of idealistic and broadly generalizing thought is advancing. The time of great thinkers will come again; but a young country is not to be blamed for the spirit of the times, nor ought its present accomplishment to be measured after the standards of happier days. If we make a perfectly fair comparison, we shall find that American philosophy is at present up to that of any other country.
Externally, in the first place, America makes a massive showing, even if we leave out of account philosophical literature of the more popular sort. While, for example, England has only two really important philosophical magazines, America has at least five which are as good as the English; and if philosophy is taken in the customary wider sense, sociological and pedagogical journals must be included, which are nowhere surpassed. The emphasis is laid differently in America and Germany; and this difference, which may be seen in almost all sciences, generally, though not always, has deeper grounds than merely personal ones, and is in every case apt to distort the judgment of a foreigner. America, for instance, is astonishingly unproductive in the history of philosophy. Every need seems to be satisfied by translations from the German or by very perfunctory text-book compilations. On the other hand, the theory of knowledge, ethics, and above all psychology, are very prosperous. Disputes in epistemology have always been carried on in America, and the Calvinistic theology, more especially, arrived at important conclusions. At the beginning of the eighteenth century lived Jonathan Edwards, who was perhaps the greatest metaphysical mind in the history of America. The transcendental way of thought, which is profoundly planted in the American soul, was nurtured by German idealism, and found expression through the genius of Emerson. Then, in more systematic and academic ways, there have been philosophers like Porter and McCosh, who stood under Scotch influence and fought against positivism; others, like Harris and Everett, who have represented German tendencies; while Draper, Fiske, Cope, Leconte, and others have preached the philosophy of science. In the front ranks to-day of philosophers are Ladd, Dewey, Fullerton, Bowne, Ormond, Howison, Santayana, Palmer, Strong, Hibben, Creighton, Lloyd, and most influential of all, Royce, whose latest work, “The World and the Individual,” is perhaps the most significant epistemological system of our day.
Psychology is the most favoured of all the philosophical disciplines in America at the present time. This is shown outwardly in the growth of laboratories for experimental psychology, which in size and equipment far exceed those of Europe. America has more than forty laboratories. Foremost in this psychological movement is William James, who is, next to Wundt, the most distinguished psychologist living, and whose remarkable analysis of conscious phenomena has been set down with a freshness and liveliness, an energy and discrimination, which are highly characteristic of American intellect. Then there are other well-known investigators like Stanley Hall, Cattell, Baldwin, Ladd, Sanford, Titchener, Angell, Miss Calkins, Scripture, and many others. In pedagogy, which is now disporting itself in a great display of paper and ink, the names of Harris, Eliot, Butler, Hall, Da Garmo, and Hanus are the most respected.
Just as theological and metaphysical speculations, ever since the early Colonial days, have preceded present-day scientific philosophy, so in the science of history systematic investigators were preceded in early days by the Colonial historians, beginning with Bradford and Winthrop. A people which are so restless to make history, so proud of their doings, so grateful to their heroes, and which more than any other people base their law and public policy avowedly on precedent, will necessarily have enjoyed the recounting of their own past. America has had a systematic history, however, only since the thirties, and two periods of work are generally distinguished; an earlier one, in which historians undertook to cover the whole subject of American history, or at least very large portions of it, and a later period embracing the last decade, in which historical interest has been devoted to minuter studies. Bancroft and Parkman stand for the first movement. George Bancroft began to write his history in 1830, and worked patiently thereon for half a century. By 1883 the development of the country, from its discovery up to the adoption of the American Constitution, had been completed in a thorough-going fashion. Parkman was the greater genius, and one who opened an entirely new perspective in American history by his investigations and fascinating descriptions of the wars between the English and the French colonists. The great works of Hildreth and Tucker should also be mentioned here.
The period of specialized work, of course, covers less ground. The large monographs of Henry Adams, John Fiske, Rhodes, Schouler, McMaster, Eggleston, Roosevelt, and of Von Holst, if an adoptive son of America may be included, are accounted the best pieces of work. They have described American history partly by geographical regions and partly by periods; and they show great diversity of style, as may be seen by comparing the martial tone of Holst and the majestic calmness of Rhodes. To these must be added the biographies, of which the best known form the series of “American Statesmen.” Americans are particularly fond of studying a portion of national history from the life of some especially active personality. Then too, for twenty years, there has been a considerable and indispensable fabrication of historical research. Large general works and reference books, like those of Winsor, Hart, and others; the biographies, archive studies, correspondences, local histories, often published by learned societies; series of monographs, journals, the chief of which is the American Historical Review—in short, everything necessary to the modern cultivation of historical science are to be found abundantly. The Revolution, the beginnings of the Federation, the Civil War, and Congress are specially favoured topics. It is almost a matter of course that the independent investigation into European history is very little attempted; although very good things have been done, such as Prescott’s work on Spanish history, Motley’s Rise of the Dutch Republic; and in recent times, for instance, Taylor has made important studies in English history, Perkins in French, Henderson in German, Thayer in Italian, Lea and Emerton in ecclesiastical history, Mahan in the history of naval warfare, and similarly others.
This lively interest in philosophy and history is itself enough to disprove the old fable that American science is directed only toward material ends. Perhaps, to be sure, some one might say that philosophy is practiced to better mankind and history to teach politicians some practical lessons, while both statements are in point of fact false. No such charge, however, can be made against classical philology; and yet no one can read the transactions, which constitute many volumes, of the five hundred members of the Philological Association, or read the numbers of the American journal of Philology, or the classical studies published by Harvard, Cornell, and Chicago, without feeling distinctly that here is scientific work of the strictest sort, and that the methods of investigations are steadily improving. The movement is younger in this department than in the others. To be sure, the classical authors have been well known in America for two centuries; but in no province has the dilettanteism of the English gentleman so thoroughly prevailed. It was not until the young philologians commenced to visit German universities, and especially Göttingen, that a thorough-going philology was introduced. And such a work as the forty-four students of the great classicist, Gildersleeve, published on the occasion of his seventieth birthday, would have been impossible twenty years ago. The greatest interest is devoted to syntactical investigation, in which the best-known works are those of Goodwin, Gildersleeve, and Hale; while there are some works on lexicography and comparative languages, and fewer still on textual criticism. Every classical philologian knows the names of Hadley, Beck, Allen, Lane, Warren, Smyth, White, Wheeler, Shorey, Dressier, and many others.
There is an unusual interest in Oriental philology, which is slightly influenced indeed by practical motives. For instance, the great religious interest taken in the Bible—not by scientists, but by the general public—has sent out special expeditions and done much to advance the study of cuneiform inscriptions. The Assyrian collections of the University of Pennsylvania are accounted, in many respects, the most complete in existence. Its curator, Hilprecht, is well known, and Lyon, Haupt, and others almost as well. Whitney, of Yale, was undoubtedly the leader in Sanskrit. Lanman, of Harvard, is his most famous successor, and besides him are Jackson, Buck, Bloomfield, and others. Toy is the great authority on Semitic languages.