country; and no better text can be found for a discourse on the
subject than the preceding quotation. In saying that there should
be a thousand investigators of disease where there is now one, I
believe that Professor Lankester would be the first to admit that
this statement was that of an ideal to be aimed at, rather than of
an end to be practically reached. Every careful thinker will agree
that to gather a body of men, young or old, supply them with
laboratories and microscopes, and tell them to investigate
disease, would be much like sending out an army without trained
leaders to invade an enemy's country.

There is at least one condition of success in this line which is
better fulfilled in our own country than in any other; and that is
liberality of support on the part of munificent citizens desirous
of so employing their wealth as to promote the public good.
Combining this instrumentality with the general public spirit of
our people, it must be admitted that, with all the disadvantages
under which scientific research among us has hitherto labored,
there is still no country to which we can look more hopefully than
to our own as the field in which the ideal set forth by Professor
Lankester is to be pursued. Some thoughts on the question how
scientific research may be most effectively promoted in our own
country through organized effort may therefore be of interest. Our
first step will be to inquire what general lessons are to be
learned from the experience of the past.

The first and most important of these lessons is that research has
never reached its highest development except at centres where
bodies of men engaged in it have been brought together, and
stimulated to action by mutual sympathy and support. We must call