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Science and the Library 1 By MARSTON MORSE Science and the Library 1 Dr. Morse is Professor, the Institute the use made of the stacks of the Harvard for Advanced Study, Princeton University. library by a former graduate student, now a distinguished professor. Among the other HE KINDLY, humorous and learned graduate students using the stacks was a T words with which Dr. Chalmers has particularly beautiful Radcliffe student, and characterized some of the mathematicians my friend made the stacks the scene of a o£ the past strengthen a resolution which successful courtship of this young woman. I have long entertained, to seek an alliance After they were married the firstborn was with humanists of his type on behalf of appropriately named Widener. Here there those scientists who are against the growing was a felicitous use of the library in the scientific materialism of the present day. pursuit of beauty. However, this illustra­ I his description of the intellectual ~ccept tion seemed to me to be lacking in univer­ agility and formidable severity of some of sality, so that I felt co~pelled to drop it. the historic figures in my profession, and Then it occurred to me that a library recall the story of Euler and Diderot at was indispensable in laying the foundations the court of Catherine the Great. Ac­ of knowledge. This idea was brought cording to this legend Diderot had fin­ home by my two-year-old Peter, who em­ ished his supposed proof before the as­ ployed my books as building blocks. The sembled court, of the non-existence of God, trouble with this illustration was that the and it was Euler's duty to reply. Knowing edifices which he laboriously constructed well that Diderot was weak in mathematics always toppled over ; besides, the choice of Euler turned to Diderot and declared with the books was not discerning, so that this great solemnity and perfect conviction: "Sir lead had to be abandoned along with the a+ bn first. -- = x, In the meanwhile, if we may believe the n psychologists, my subconscious mind had hence God exists; reply!" The helpless been working, and a serious idea came to Diderot retired in confusion. The nice the surface. It was that a library is an question as to whether the end justifies the integral part of life, and that the philoso­ means arises here. phy of its use must flow from a general When your librarian, Mr. Parker, first philosophy of life. My convictions as to asked me to speak on science and the li­ the nature of values in science were definite, brary, I was a bit puzzled as to what to and it at o.nce appeared that these concepts say. One takes a library for granted to of value had the most intimate connection such an extent that reflection was required. with the problem of the growth, use, and The first idea that came to me concerned meaning of a library. How then to convey an accurate con­ 1 An address given at the Library Supper, Kenyon College, June 13, 1948. ception of a rriore or less individualistic APRIL, 1949 151 philosophy in a few moments? I could state-controlled scientific materialism as it resort to terms: I could say that I was a exists in Russia and the idealism historically realist, and be mistaken perhaps for an associated with science, but a contrast be­ empiricist or a Republican; or I could say tween scientific materialism and confusion. that I was an idealist, and be mistaken for To this confusion there is added a generally a conceptualist or a Democrat. In spite of unrecognized, and increasing determina­ the obvious dangers in my course I shall tion of the sense of scientific values by the nevertheless begin with a label. events of the day, as interpreted by the Seriously, with some hesitation, and with press, radio, and screen. It matters little more pretension than I like I shall call if science is valued more highly, if it is myself a scientist-humanist-theist. To drop valued more highly for specious and for­ any term in this trilogy would mar the tuitous reasons. The fact that today's his­ synthesis I have in mind. That humanism tory is fateful, that life and deajth are at and theism are sometimes regarded as con­ stake, explains in part an increasing per­ tradictory everyone knows, but I doubt the version of scientific values; but there can presence of anyone in this audience who be no real justification of a failure to more feels this contradiction. To say that true perfectly relate values in science to the humanism denies theism in the Christian inner life and to the dignity and serenity sense is to .deny the fatherhood of God. I of man .. am a scientist by inclination, a humanist by Our age has substituted the idea of con­ experience, and a theist by the light of trol of things and of men for the ideal of reason and. a great need. wisdom and. understanding. The size of a In all that I have seriously to say I am man's laboratory and the number of dollars assuming that the attitude of my listeners is in his budget have become the measure of one that belongs to a liberal arts college. his value. Let us begin education with un­ If I deplore certain new tendencies toward derstanding and never forsake this ideal. scientific materialism, it is not implied that The library is a symbol of this ancient such tendencies exist here. I hope that objective and a principal instrument in its what I shall say may reinforce your con­ pursuit. The young student in science (in­ victions and make you realize a little more cluding mathematics) must be intellectually keenly the great dangers immanent in the aroused and properly led. For these ends impetuous evolution of the present day. there has never been any one book thor­ The library of a college, whether small oughly adequate. A student can approach or large, is the symbol of the continuity science in many ways; he can approach and universality of our civilization. There mathematics, for example, by way of alge­ has never been an age more in need of the bra, or geometry. By taste or aptitude he wisdom of the past, or a country more likely may find one of fhese ways more natural to suffer from scientific or philosophic pro­ than the other. This variability of aptitude vincialism, than our own. Activity for in . algebra and geometry is found even in activity's sake, computation without under­ the greatest mathematicians. I have in mind standing, statistics as an end, g~dgetry in­ the case of the leading geometer in Oxford stead of science-these things are marks at the present day. As a student he was of today. regarded as uninspired by his teacher, the In the world at large confusion about greatest mathematician in . England. A value and significance in science is wide­ mathematician from this country who was spread. The contrast is not one between for one year an exchange professor at Ox- 152 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES ford discovered other tastes and talents pated by the logic of Poincare. From these in this student with a resulting transforma­ records it i.s clear that advance in science tion, first in enthusiasm, and second in is inevitable, but that the path is as for­ attainment, so that this student is now a tuitous and as variable as the genius of the famous scholar. men involved. It is the library which In the library then, there must be the makes this discovery possible. books which inspire, and those which lay There is a very practical sense in which a enduring foundations. Such books vary college must recognize the dependence of a with the subject and the age; their suita­ theoretical scientist on the library. The bility depends upon the student. Even the demand for competent scientists on the foundations of logic change from age to part of industry and the research agencies age. Only the most skilful educator can of the government has been augmented to properly apportion the emphasis on logic such an extent in these last years that col­ or intuition which is appropriate for a leges and universities are finding it ex­ given student. The books for the under­ tremely difficult to retain their staffs. This graduate can be small in number if wisely has been brought home to me very vividly chosen. by the experience of two of my former In following the democratic ideal of students. One has had his salary tripled primarily serving the undergraduate stu­ in the last three years and has moved three dents, American colleges uphold our tradi­ times. The other has refused a salary twice tion and fill our greatest needs. However, his present salary, because his university in too exclusively following this path some has recognized his scholarly interests and American institutions of learning have has made the circumstances surrounding wellnigh lost sight of the great objectives his work most favorable. The conclusion of medieval universities. As avowed in the present connection is that the exist­ carriers and custodians of the knowledge ence of an adequate (but not necessarily and culture of the past, the ancient uni­ large) reference library in a theoretical versities-Paris, Pisa, Oxford-regarded science . is indispensable to retain any young themselves as belonging to all time ~nd scholar worth retaining. At one time it ages. We can abandon this old concept of a used to be the case that a scholar could go university only at our peril.
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