In even the briefest and most random enumeration of towering native sons it is impossible to ignore the name of William James. Here for once the suffrage of town and gown, of domestic and alien judges, is unanimous. Naturally James can never mean quite the same to the European world that he means to us, because in the United States he is far more than a great psychologist, philosopher, or literary man. Owing to our peculiar spiritual history, he occupies in our milieu an altogether unique position. His is the solitary example of an American pre-eminent in a branch of science who at the same time succeeded in deeply affecting the cultural life of a whole generation. Further, he is probably the only one of our genuinely original men to be thoroughly saturated with the essense of old world civilization. On the other side of the Atlantic, of course, neither of these characteristics would confer a patent of distinction. Foreign judgment of James’s psychological achievement was consequently not coloured by external considerations, and it is all the more remarkable that the “Principles of Psychology” was so widely and by such competent critics acclaimed as a synthesis of the first order.
Without attempting to exhaust the roster of great names, I must mention Simon Newcomb and his fellow-astronomer, George W. Hill, both Copley medallists. Newcomb, in particular, stood out as the foremost representative of his science in this country, honoured here and abroad alike for his abstruse original researches into the motion of the moon and the planetary system and for his effective popularization. Henry Augustus Rowland, the physicist, was another of our outstanding men—one, incidentally, whose measure was taken in Europe long before his greatness dawned upon his colleagues at home. He is celebrated, among other things, for perfecting an instrument of precision and for a new and more accurate determination of the mechanical equivalent of heat. Among geologists Grove Karl Gilbert, famous for his exploration of Lake Bonneville—the major forerunner of Great Salt Lake—and his investigations of mountain structure, stands forth as one of our pre-eminent savants. Even those who, like the present writer, enjoyed merely casual contact with that grand old man could not fail to gain the impression that now they knew what a great scientist looked like in the flesh and to feel that such a one would be a fit member of any intellectual galaxy anywhere.
If from single individuals we turn to consider currents of scientific thought, the United States again stands the trial with flying colours. It can hardly be denied that in a number of branches our countrymen are marching in the vanguard. “Experimental biology,” said a German zoologist some time before the War, “is pre-eminently an American science.” Certainly one need merely glance at German or British manuals to learn how deeply interpretations of basic evolutionary phenomena have been affected by the work of Professor T. H. Morgan and his followers. In psychology it is true that no one wears the mantle of William James, but there is effective advancement along a number of distinct lines. Thorndike’s tests marked an era in the annals of animal psychology, supplanting with a saner technique the slovenly work of earlier investigators. Experimental investigation of mental phenomena generally, of individual variability and behaviour in particular, flourishes in a number of academic centres. In anthropology the writings of Lewis H. Morgan have proved a tremendous stimulus to sociological speculation the world over and still retain their hold on many European thinkers. They were not, in my opinion, the product of a great intellect and the scheme of evolution traced by Morgan is doomed to abandonment. Yet his theories have suggested a vast amount of thought and to his lasting credit it must be said that he opened up an entirely new and fruitful field of recondite research through his painstaking accumulation and discussion of primitive kinship terminologies.
More recently the anthropological school headed by Professor Boas has led to a transvaluation of theoretical values in the study of cultural development, supplanting with a sounder historical insight the cruder evolutionary speculation of the past. Above all, its founder has succeeded in perfecting the methodology of every division of the vast subject, and remains probably the only anthropologist in the world who has both directly and indirectly furthered ethnological, linguistic, somatological and archæological investigation. Finally, the active part played by pathologists like Dr. Simon Flexner in the experimental study of disease is too well known to require more than brief mention.
Either in its individual or collective results, American research is thus very far from being a negligible factor in the scientific life of the world. Nevertheless, the medal has a reverse side, and he would be a bold optimist who should sincerely voice complete contentment either with the status of science in the cultural polity of the nation or with the work achieved by the average American investigator. Let us, then, try to face the less flattering facts in the case.
The fundamental difficulty can be briefly summarized by applying the sociologist’s concept of maladjustment. American science, notwithstanding its notable achievements, is not an organic product of our soil; it is an epiphenomenon, a hothouse growth. It is still the prerogative of a caste, not a treasure in which the nation glories. We have at best only a nascent class of cultivated laymen who relish scientific books requiring concentrated thought or supplying large bodies of fact. This is shown most clearly by the rarity of articles of this type even in our serious magazines. Our physicians, lawyers, clergymen and journalists—in short, our educated classes—do not encourage the publication of reading-matter which is issued in Europe as a profitable business venture. It is hard to conceive of a book like Mach’s “Analyse der Empfindungen” running through eight editions in the United States. Conversely, it is not strange that hardly any of our first-rate men find it an alluring task to seek an understanding with a larger audience. Newcomb and James are of course remarkable exceptions, but they are exceptions. Here again the contrast with European conditions is glaring. Not to mention the classic popularizers of the past, England, e.g., can boast even to-day of such men as Pearson, Soddy, Joly, Hinks—all of them competent or even distinguished in their professional work yet at the same time skilful interpreters of their field to a wider public. But for a healthy cultural life a rapport of this sort between creator and appreciator is an indispensable prerequisite, and it is not a whit less important in science than in music or poetry.
The estrangement of science from its social environment has produced anomalies almost inconceivable in the riper civilizations of the Old World. Either the scientist loses contact with his surroundings or in the struggle for survival he adapts himself by a surrender of his individuality, that is, by more or less disingenuously parading as a lowbrow and representing himself as a dispenser of worldly goods. It is quite true that, historically, empirical knowledge linked with practical needs is earlier than rational science; it is also true that applied and pure science can be and have been mutual benefactors. This lesson is an important one and in a country with a scholastic tradition like Germany it was one that men like Mach and Ostwald did well to emphasize. But in an age and country where philosophers pique themselves on ignoring philosophical problems and psychologists have become experts in advertising technique, the emphasis ought surely to be in quite the opposite direction, and that, even if one inclines in general to a utilitarian point of view. For nothing is more certain than that a penny-wise Gradgrind policy is a pound-foolish one. A friend teaching in one of our engineering colleges tells me that owing to the “practical” training received there the graduates are indeed able to apply formulæ by rote but flounder helplessly when confronted by a new situation, which drives them to seek counsel with the despised and underpaid “theoretical” professor. The plea for pure science offered by Rowland in 1883 is not yet altogether antiquated in 1921: “To have the applications of a science, the science itself must exist ... we have taken the science of the Old World, and applied it to all our uses, accepting it like the rain of heaven, without asking whence it came, or even acknowledging the debt of gratitude we owe to the great and unselfish workers who have given it to us.... To a civilized nation of the present day, the applications of science are a necessity, and our country has hitherto succeeded in this line, only for the reason that there are certain countries in the world where pure science has been and is cultivated, and where the study of nature is considered a noble pursuit.”
The Bœotian disdain for research as a desirable pursuit is naturally reflected in the mediocre encouragement doled out to investigators, who are obliged to do their work by hook or by crook and to raise funds by the undignified cajolery of wealthy patrons and a disingenuous argumentum ad hominem. Heaven forbid that money be appropriated to attack a problem which, in the opinion of the best experts, calls for solution; effort must rather be diverted to please an ignorant benefactor bent on establishing a pet theory or fired with the zeal to astound the world by a sensational discovery.
Another aspect of scientific life in the United States that reflects the general cultural conditions is the stress placed on organization and administration as opposed to individual effort. It is quite true that for the prosecution of elaborate investigations careful allotment of individual tasks contributory to the general end is important and sometimes even indispensable. But some of the greatest work in the history of science has been achieved without regard for the principles of business efficiency; and whatever advantage may accrue in the future from administrative devices is negligible in comparison with the creative thought of scientific men. These, and only these, can lend value to the machinery of organization, which independently of them must remain a soulless instrument. The overweighting of efficiency schemes as compared to creative personalities is only a symptom of a general maladjustment. Intimately related with this feature is that cynical flouting of intellectual values that appears in the customary attitude of trustees and university presidents towards those who shed lustre on our academic life. The professional pre-eminence of a scientist may be admitted by the administrative officials but it is regarded as irrelevant since the standard of values accepted by them is only remotely, if at all, connected with originality or learning.
There are, of course, scientists to whom deference is paid even by trustees, nay, by the wives of trustees; but it will be usually found that they are men of independent means or social prestige. It is, in other words, their wealth and position, not their creative work, that raises them above their fellows. One of the most lamentable results of this contempt for higher values is the failure to provide for ample leisure that might be devoted to research. The majority of our scientists, like those abroad, gain a livelihood by teaching, but few foreign observers fail to be shocked by the way the energies of their American colleagues are frittered away on administrative routine and elementary instruction till neither time nor strength remains for the advancement of knowledge. But even this does not tell the whole story, for we must remember that the younger scientists are as a rule miserably underpaid and are obliged to eke out a living by popular writing or lecturing, so that research becomes a sheer impossibility. If Ostwald and Cattell are right in associating the highest productivity with the earlier years of maturity, the tragic effects of such conditions as I have just described are manifest.