These conditions cannot be reproduced in this country at present. That must be a very slow growth indeed. We have that to base our hopes for the future on. Look at the great advances that have taken place within the last quarter of a century. Twentyfive years ago the outlook was much less satisfactory than it is now. The change in that time has been rapid. If so much has been accomplished in twenty-five years, what may we not hope for in the future? I, myself, am most hopeful. I see developments in every direction. There is much that I should like to see improved, but I fancy that will always be the case. Germany, our guide in such matters, is far from perfect. You will hear complaints everywhere in that country. You will always hear them, but we have had enough improvement here in the past few years to justify our brightest hopes.

THE REFLEX VALUES OF RESEARCH.

Research is a large word and original research a still larger one. I need not tell what research is, nor attempt to define the heights and depths of it. That has been admirably well done by my predecessors. I will describe a related thing about which I prefer to speak. Perhaps this will do: a passion for something intellectual that will help the world on; or a passion for something intellectual, outside the individual claim, outside the family claim, outside the social claim. It is not the increase of one's own knowledge or the rounding out of one's own culture. Goethe's pyramid of self-culture does not express it. It is a desire, with effort, to add somewhat to the world's sum of benefit or knowledge. I should not confine this phase of activity to the discovery alone of a new truth or relation, but I should include also the application of a new method. I should include the efforts at Hull House and Rivington Street, as well as the investigations of sociological relations by the latest and best devices. Since my object is to consider the reflex values of research, I need not confine my outlook to the strict limits of laboratory and library. It is rather the spirit and the motive collateral with the effort, and their secondary results, that bear upon my subject.

I use the word passion, because I require a vigorous term. It must needs be an absorbing interest, if it is going to hold us in this American life of ours. I realize this as I watch young minds growing older in the press of contemporaneous conditions. It must be a deep-seated devotion, to retain vitality under the inroads of the daily task, dull routine, unreasonable relatives, fashion, and dinner parties. It must be elastic enough to yield but not break even under the stress of courtship and marriage.

Assuming that nature has given us this propelling love, and that good fortune has provided the training and the tools, what may be the reflex values of research? Let us look at the question in two ways, the effects upon the individual and the effects upon social relations.

First, there is the general uplift of mind that always accompanies intellectual effort that is genuine and sincere. Surely if the spirit of the truth seeker is present, one cannot but be lifted away

to a wider look upon life. Surely must one be led to a clearer perception of the "deeper meaning at the heart of common sense," to quote from Professor Royce. Further, this undercurrent of effort running through our daily experience must bring a concentration of power and a singleness of aim. We certainly need such an influence in the rush and hurry of our American life. What better answer to the thousand and one useless and fruitless demands of the busybody's world, than this "Engaged" writ upon the door front of our retreat? How quickly, after all, the worker is recognized to be a worker, and is allowed his clear space in the confusion of the social jungle. And from this clear space of the quiet worker, one can judge much more fairly of real and unreal meanings. Thus we can the better concentrate what power of thought we have upon the deserving centers, and press away to their appropriate smallness the dazing demands that ordinary experiences so magnify. The scattering of one's power, produced by these various and unfounded claims upon us, leads to feebleness of purpose, monotony of will and lack of individuality. An individual, a real individual, who stands for himself, who has his idea, his own task, his obstinate insistence even, how refreshing he is!

With the singleness of aim that a definite effort enforces, will come also a certain serenity of mind. In some departments of effort, indeed, it would seem difficult to keep hold on serenity. In dealing with sociological problems where the perverseness of the human units seems so utterly thwarting and antagonistic, it must appear to the onlooker impossible not to yield to discouragement. But we have all noted, I am sure, how invariably hopeful and optimistic the philanthropist is.

With singleness of aim and concentration of power, there comes, closely following, simplicity in habit of life. Our seeker will need this greater simplicity in the practical way of gain in time. He must have it to accomplish any results. He will come to choose it for its own sake. Any power which brings the result of simplicity of habit comprises in itself also a power over circumstance. I mean by circumstance, the nonessential circumstance, the conventionality, that stand in such big proportions before the ordinary eye. If our real duties weighed as much with us as these conventional requirements, we should be mostly very good people. What bet

ter than the seeker's task can help us to answer Marcus Aurelius' question? He says: "The greater part of what we say or do being unnecessary, if a man takes this away, he will have more leisure and less uneasiness. Accordingly on every occasion a man should ask himself, Is this one of the unnecessary things?"

Prof. Münsterberg in a most interesting and stimulating address at Vassar College last June, entitled Knowledge and Beauty, held that the pursuit of knowledge does not give beauty, because it analyzes, separates, compares, while beauty must be seen as a whole, in isolation. There is an aspect, indeed, in which this is true. The poet does not analyze or compare, he feels the whole. But if no one had ever analyzed or compared, if the knowledge, which the contemplation of the past has gathered about the thing he feels, did not exist at all, would his feeling be as deep and broad as it is? I am sure not. As I look up at the stars, am I more impressed with beauty, if I take them into my thought just as they look, a vast beautiful sphere of brilliant points, varied in light and color, turning about from east to west, or if I also take into my thought, as I look, their infinite distances, their intricate motions, their vast aggregations? How much deeper the latter impression of beauty and sublimity! And how could this ever have been a part of my thought, but for the patient, detailed study of the knowledge-seeker? Though one may hold that the immediate investigation of relations may not contribute an element to beauty consciousness, beauty is not far distant from the mental contemplation of these relations. The larger the culture, the greater the range of beauty sensibility. Therefore I believe that our truth-seeker, though dwelling immediately on some detail, is not sacrificing his power of perceiving beauty, indeed he may be adding to it. Doubtless the case of Darwin comes to your minds as I say this, and his confessed loss of interest in poetry and natural beauty, as he grew older and became more deeply absorbed in his discoveries. But is it only the investigator who loses, in his absorption, his early love of æsthetic things? Does not the young man lose it in business or politics, or the young woman in the press of family and social life? I know nothing sadder than this growing indifference as the years increase, but I need not go so far away from the beaten track of experience as Darwin's life, to find its parallel. Doubt

less, as Emerson says, "When Nature makes a genius, she spoils a man," but doubtless also, any extreme absorption of attention lessens the power to see and feel the intangible beauty in which all things are enveloped. But it is short-sighted reasoning to hold that the absorption of the investigator is alone responsible for this loss of perception. Darwin recognized the loss, and expressed it with regret. Many another mind of less capacity loses it, realizes not what it has lost, and knows no regret. How many people of your acquaintance read poetry at twenty and read no more at forty? And investigators must form a vanishing proportion in the group.

I have claimed, then, as reflex values of research, a wider outlook, greater concentration of power and singleness of aim, a greater serenity of mind and simplicity of habit, gained through a keener control over circumstance, and a larger hold upon the meaning and beauty of the world.

When we turn to the social values of research, I fear I may say over again, for the most part, what I have already presented. Individual effects and social effects are too closely allied to be treated as distinctly separated results. Yet the reverse side of the shield is worth consideration.

We are all college women, or are connected with or interested in colleges. We are familiar with the view of the modern educational world in regard to the effect of research on the college status. Perhaps this single attitude meets the question of reflex values to a community better than any other I could cite. There are differences of opinion regarding the due relation of instruction and investigation in the ideal college teacher, but that the element of investigation gives power and vitality to the department and reputation to the college is unquestioned. Investigation may in some cases limit the time given to instruction, the zeal of research may overrun the zeal to impart, but in the higher grades of teaching, drill plays a small part, example, spirit and influence a large part. Vassar women who knew Maria Mitchell in the days of her prime, realize fully the distinction between the power to impart and the power to inspire. Miss Mitchell was not an investigator in the modern use of the term, but she stood apart from teachers of her time in exemplifying the spirit of the