Entries from April 2005 ↓

At a recent meeting of an University Montessori Club the case of donors to colleges and universities was reported on by a special committee. The majority report drew a pretty heavy indictment. It was shown that the givers to colleges and universities seldom considered the real needs of their beneficiaries. Donors liked to give expensive buildings without endowment for upkeep, liked to give vast athletic fields, rejoiced in stadiums, affected memorial statuary and stained glass windows, dabbled in landscape gardening, but seldom were known either to give anything unconditionally or, specifically, to destine a gift for such uninspiring needs as more books or professors’ pay. The result of giving without first considering the needs of the benefited college or university, was that every gift made the beneficiary more lopsided. Certain universities were almost capsized by their incidental architecture. Others were subsidizing graduate students to whom the conditions of successful research were denied. Still others were calling great specialists to the teaching force without providing the apparatus for the pursuit of these specialties. Others preferred to offer financial aid to students who were poor–in every sense. Donors apparently without exception had single-track minds. They saw plainly enough what they wanted to give, but never took the pains to see the donation in its relation to the institution as a whole. The majority report, which was drawn by our famous Latinist, Professor Claudius Senex, concluded with the despairing note Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes. The minority report was delivered orally by young Simpson Smith of the department of banking and finance. He “allowed” that everything alleged by the majority report was true, but saw no use in dwelling on such truths, since donors always had done and always would do just as they darned pleased.

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The present time is essentially one of transition. Complete uncertainty reigns as to the main principles of biology. Many of us think that the materialistic and simplicist method has proved a complete failure, and that the time has come to strike out on entirely different lines. Just in what direction the new biology will grow out is hard to see at present, so many divergent beginnings have been made–the materialistic vitalism of Driesch, the profound intuitionalism of Bergson, the psychological biology of Delpino, Francé, Pauly, A. Wagner and W. Mackenzie. But if any of these are destined to give the future direction to biology, they will in a measure only be bringing biology back to its pre-materialistic tradition, the tradition of Aristotle, Cuvier, von Baer and J. Müller. It may well be that the intransigent materialism of the 19th century is merely an episode, an aberration rather, in the history of biology–an aberration brought about by the over-rapid development of a materialistic and luxurious civilisation, in which man’s material means have outrun his mental and moral growth.

The loony painting of the impressionist, the erotic novels, the realistic horrors evolved by Zola, Ibsen, Tolstoi, Maupassant and Maeterlinck, the weird music of Wagner, the scarey fashions which mark the dress of the woman of our day, are all illustrations of this new “fin-de-siecle” spirit. We are told that the world of the present is living in “the reddened light of the dusk of the nations;” that faith is dying, that, tired of all existing things, man chases after new beliefs, new engagements and sensations, only to find that the trail of the serpent is over all. Fin de siecleism is a disease which has before afflicted mankind. It raged at the close of the year 1000, when there was a general belief that the end of all things was at hand, and men sought vainly to compress all possibly earthly pleasures into a few hours yet allotted them. The eighteenth century went out in the blood and horrors of the wars succeeding the French revolution, and poets of that day cast horoscopes for the future full of gloom and foreboding.

After wading through pages of the long-winded confusion and second-hand information of the “Philosophic Positive,” at the risk of a crise cérébrale–it is as good as a shower-bath to turn to the “Classification of the Sciences,” and refresh oneself with Mr. Spencer’s profound thought, precise knowledge, and clear language.

Is it me? Is Odd Ends a butt of the jokes of the technical elite? I tried to “claim” Odd Ends on Technorati. Everything goes ok… I get the link and put it in the sidebar, and then on the “members page” it says to “Ping Technorati to finish.”

So I go to the Ping page and enter the OE url and wait… and wait… and never does it change to that lovely “Ping Received!” notice. And so Technorati doesn’t think I’m serious about this cosmos thingy.

Phooey. So I write a post which should auto-ping ‘em. We’ll just see if that is more amenable to the Technorati Ping servers.

Weeds along railroad tracks are now killed by the “electric weed-killer.” It consists of a car carrying a dynamo, which sends a heavy current into a sort of rake of fine wires dragging among the weeds on each side of the track. As the wires touch them the weeds are “electrocuted” down to their smallest rootlets. It is proposed to introduce the same system in farming.

The farmers of Monee, Ill. have organized a market for the sale of stock. The sales take place the second Tuesday of every month. The first was held on the 10th ult., and was a decided success. The centre of attention was a large goat, gaily decorated, surnamed “Andrew Johnson.”

A great change is taking place in our views in regard to the moon, and it may be that we are on the eve of discoveries which will make this century an epoch in astronomical history. Some American observers saw not long since a crater on the lunar surface in active operation under conditions as reliable as human vision at such a distance can be expected to reach. A French astronomer has made observations on a grander scale, and confidently asserts that the moon is inhabited. M. Camille Flammarion, the present originator of this long-cherished idea, is a scientist of honor and renown, well known for his reputation as an observer and enthusiastic writer. He has written several articles to prove his position, and has determined to devote his life to this branch of astronomical research. No instruments on the globe are powerful enough to afford a glimpse of our lunarian neighbors. M. Flammarion is not in the least discouraged at this apparently insuperable obstacle in the way of a solution of his problem. He is going to have one made that will exhibit the men in the moon to terrestrial eyes without a possibility of mistake. He is urgently soliciting contributions to a fund for an immense refracting telescope, whose estimated cost is 1,000,000 francs, or $200,000. This instrument, the astronomer believes, will be effectual in revealing the inhabitants in the moon really existing, according to his sanguine faith. Some of the largest refractors in the world, if used when the air is pure, bear a power of 3,000 on the moon; that is, the moon appears as if it were eighty miles instead of 240,000. It can thus be seen that an immensely-increased power would be required to detect small objects on the surface.

We trust M. Flammarion will be successful in collecting funds for his monster telescope, and that he will pick up crowds of lunarians through its far-seeing eye before the vision of the present generation becomes too dim to behold the long-wished for sight.–Providence (R. I.) Journal.