The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-11-04
Americas Opportunity for Scientific
Leadership.

DR.. ALEXIS CARREL's decision not to
stay in France, his native country,
but to return to the United States to
pursue the studies in which he has
already won lasting international
fame is at once a compliment to this
country and a warning to those on
whom rests the responsibility to keep
open and clear the pathways of sci
ence here. The fact that the United
States Is to-day financially better able
than any other country to support
scientists In their researches is OBJ
vtous, but this is temporary condi-
ton which will not long endure. No
nation Is too poor to provide ade-
quately for the retention within it's
educational system, formally or infor-
mally, Of an investigator and instruc-
not of money handicaps that he speaks
In announcing his determination to
come again to this country.
The burden of DIR. CARREL's COM
plant about conditions In France is
that there is no longer opportunity
In that country for original, daring
exploration of the unknown. The bar
riers Of conventionality, In his opin-
lon, have contracted to degree which
imperils scientific work and prevents
young and ardent spirits from ac-
complishing what they might. In DIR.
CARREL's words:
France lie atrophying and sitting
her great minds by the formulas OF
another age.
Powerful castles have been formed
which refuse to admit new, ideas and
conceptions.
Independent spirits and ideas find
tnsurmountable barriers before them.
''The French faculty of medicine
IN the Pasteur Institute opens its
doors only to the specially elect;
scientific audaclty is not tolerated;
discoveries that shatter the theories
OF old masters never are admitted.
Science Is restrained to the point
where it is becoming sterile"
Attribution Of this intellectual con-
dttion TO French savants by an au-
thority less responsible and less re-
spected than DR.. CARREL would be
dismissed without serious considera-
ton. The resiliency of the French
mind, the Impotence OF French schol-
ars with convention for conventions
sake, is attested by the numerous rev.
olutlonary advances in science which
have been won by them, not atl of
them in the remote past. Yet It is
true that a tradition may be estab-
hshed in any school in what would
seem an incredibly short time were
the facts not so we'll known. That
the condition DIR. CARREL describes as
existing in France Is to be permanent
nobody will believe The ardor of the
French in the pursuit of knowledge,
the necessities of their country, the
opportunities opened for their schools
by the collapse of Germany, will ere
ate situation in which that scholas-
tic audacity which defes formulas
and achieves new triumphs not only
will assert itself once more but will no
lavishly rewarded.
Meantime the warning for this
country Is plain. Blessed with that
freedom from artificial restraint, and
given to that wholesome questioning
OF precedent which, when based on (
proper training and natural ability.
orers to genius Its best opportunity
to flower in accomplishment, America
may properly aspire to the leadership
m science her resources would justify.
on men with brains, of money to sup