ments" in the brain, in consequence of which a man may be rational in one particular field, but foolish and unfair when he steps outside of this field, and training in scientific research has not yet eradicated this defect in the scientists themselves. Must we, therefore, abandon the idea t h a t such training modifies behavior in the direction of sanity? Without knowing all the factors in the phenomena, and hence admitting t h a t the question is a n open one, I nevertheless venture the following suggestion. Foolish or unfair behavior of normal persons who have adequately assimilated the scientific method is not inherent in the physiological mechanism and therefore irreparable.. . . Accordingly, I do not claim that the introduction of research as a part of education a t all stagis will make all normal men sane all the time. I think it will help to make more men sane on more matters for a greater part of the time.
Dr. Carlson concludes his address by saying: I am not sufficiently myopic to promise that individual research as a part of education a t all levels will be a panacea against all the credulity and unreason of normal men. I n urging i t as a hopeful experimental therapy, I do not put undue emphasis. on the hope, because society will interfere or t r y to interfere with the experiment. There will be interference on the part of teachers who are satisfied with present methods. And in any event we start with material already processed in education by didation a t the hands of parents and priests. ~
W. R . W.
ANNIVERSARIES OF SCIENCE Among the anniversaries of science listed by Science Service as "Today in Science" for the month of February we find the following: Mme. Curie was elected a free associate member of the French Academy on February 7, 1922. She was the first woman so honored. We quote the following from a sketch of Madame Curie written for Science Service by Paul Appell, President of the Academy of Paris, in 1022: At the close of the year 1906, Madame Curie was appointed a professor in the scientific department of the University of Paris. She continued her splendid work in a tiny laboratory-far too small-established in Rue Cuvier. Later, upon the University acquiring the land between Saint Jacques and Ulm Streets, a new street named for Pierre Curie was laid out through the length of this property, and a laboratory specially designed for the use of Madame Curie was started in coordination with the Pasteur Institute. The present arrangement is this: on one side is the special laboratory for Madame Curie's research work. On the other side is a wing belonging to the Pasteur Institute where researches are carried on in the application of radium and its emanation in the treatment of diseases, particularly those of a cancerous nature. Between these two buildings is a small structure containing the precious substance. . . . At the present Madame Curie is devoting herself entirely to her work; t o her scientific researches, to teaching, and to the organization of a radio-therapeutic service that she is conducting in collaboration with Dr. Regault of the Pasteur Institute. ~
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On February 8, 1672, Isaac Newton reported t o the Royal Society his discovery that "Light is composed of a heterogeneous mixture of
differently refrangible rays." Henry Andrews Rumstead in his "Physics in the Development of the Sciences" writes: I must not neglect to mention also Newton's contributions to optics, which, while not of the fundamental importance of those we have just been discussing, were nevertheless worthy of their author. We need only to recall that he investigated the composition of white light, the colon of thin films, diffraction, and the possibilities of achromatism in refracting telescopes. He was not infallible; for he decided that i t was impassible t o make an achromatic refractor, and he supported the corpuscular theory of light against the undulatory theory of Huygens. I n bath cases, however, the evidence obtainable in his time strongly supported his position; and I think i t war this, rather than the mere authority of his name, which caused the corpuscular theory to prevail during the following century.
Thomas A. Edison was born a t Milan, Ohio, on February 11, 1847. M. Luckiesh in "A Popular History of American Invention" writes: Edison came of plain people who were of the pioneer stack that built up the Middle West. At the aae of eleven he was experimenting with chemicals in the d l a r of his father's house. From many sources he had gathered together 200 large battles, which he marked "Poison" to keep intruders from meddling with them. Then he filled them with mixtures and solutions of his own making, obtaining the materials from the village drug store. At the age of fifteen he was the possessor of important hooks on chemistry and physics and the owner of an apparatus for his experiments. So great a drain on his scant allowance were his experiments, that he persuaded his parents to permit him to become a train newsboy. By this time the Edisous had moved to Port Huron and the young inventor made the daily run from that town t o Detroit, a distance of sixty-three miles, by the Grand Trunk Railroad. He carried his experimental apparatus with him, for in the baggage car he had a small laboratory and also a printing press. From train boy he graduated into a telegraph operator and thus came in touch with the powerful force of which he was t o become a master. By 1877, he was well established in a laboratory a t Menlo Park, near Elizahethpart, New Jersey, with suEicient capital to engage assistants and to work out one of the ambitions of his life, the subdivision of the electric current. Arc-lights were clearly too big and dazzling for the home. What was wanted was a little lamp to which a comparatively small amount of current from a main conductor could be fed, just as small gas pipes tap large gas mains for home gas lighting. Contemporary scientists were quite sure that this could not be done and they were very solemn and profound when they learned of the unusual proposal of Edison. John Tyndall, one of the most eminent physicists of England, smiled when he read of the great task which the former train boy had set for himself, and in extenuation said that he would rather have Edison attack the problem than himself.
On February 18, 1564, Galileo Galilei, the great Italian physicist and astronomer, was born. In a letter to Kepler, 1597, Galileo wrote: I esteem myself fortunate to have found so great an ally in the search for truth. I t is truly lamentable that there are so few who strive for the true and are ready t o turn away from wrong ways of philosophizing. But here is no place for bewailing the pitifulness of our times, instead of wishing you success in your splendid investigations
I do this the more gladly, since I have been for many years an adherent of the Copernican theory. I t explains to me the cause of many phenomena which under the generally accepted theory are quite unintelligible. I have mllected many arguments for refuting the latter, but I do not venture to bring them to publication.
George Henry Corliss, who invented the Corliss engine, one of the outstanding steps in the development of the modern steam engine, died February 21, 1888. Decker and Kaempffert in "A Popular History of American Invention" write: Corliss invented a valve that worked like a revolving door; a rotary valve. He used these revolving-door valves a t each end of the cylinder, one to admit the steam and one to control the exhaust. A slight motion of one of these valves was sufficient t o open or dose the steam port or doorway almost without friction. To open and close his rotary valve, or revolvin~steam-door automatically. Corliss invented a . governor which was apparently composed of "endless jimaacks, all precarious." By a system of parts, certainly mare complicated than the simple ball-governor and sleeve of Watt, a weight was made to drop and suddenly cut off the steam as i t entered the cylinder . Finding i t difficult to conand not, as in the Watt engine, some moments later. vince business men that his engine was any better than Watt's, Corliss had to take risks in selling it. He knew his engine would save coal and therefore he adopted. . the plan of installing an engine free of charge and of receiving in payment part of the money saved in coal. He sold one of his first engines with the understanding that be was to be paid ail the money i t saved in five years. At the end of the five years he had pocketed $19,734.22.
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On February 23, 1843, Congress passed a bill appropriating W30,000 for the Morse telegraph. I n a paper given a t the International E x p o sition a t Paris in 1868, Morse said: Let me not be misunderstood as appropriating to myself the credit of the many modifications of the telegraph that have since been made in every part of the world. because I daim the invention of the generic telegraph. I do &
