Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 58.djvu/116

108 The prizes will be awarded as follows-For physical science and chemistry by the Swedish Academy of Sciences; for works in physiology or medicine by the Carolin Institute of Stockholm; for literature, by the Academy of Stockholm: finally for the work of peace, by a committee of five members elected by the Norwegian Stortung. It is my expressed will that nationality shall not be considered, so that the prize may accrue to the most worthy, whether he be a Scandinavian or not.

The organization for executing this will has, after an interval of about three years, been completed, and its nature has been formally announced in an official communication to our government. Nobel's intentions have not been exactly carried out, the chief deviations being that part of the money is used for the establishment of certain Nobel institutes, the objects of which are not exactly defined. On these institutes and on the incidental expenses of awarding the prizes, one-fourth of the income may be expended. Further—and this seems to be in direct violation of the provisions of the will—prizes need be given only once in five years, and the money thus saved may be used to establish special funds 'to encourage otherwise than by prizes the tendencies aimed at by the donor.' It is to be hoped that the administrators will make only judicious use of these provisions, for Nobel's purpose to establish for eminence in science and literature a few rewards as munificent as the world gives in politics, war or business is too wise to be neglected. Any attempt to divert the funds to the encouragement of local institutions or to the education of inferior men should be carefully guarded against. Nobel's will explicitly ordered that the money be awarded in prizes for eminence and without any consideration of nationality.

received early in the year a gift of $100,000 from Miss Helen Gould for the erection of a Hall of Fame. On the colonnades are to be inscribed the names of the most eminent Americans, and thirty of these have recently been selected by the Senate of the University, in accordance with the votes of certain prominent men selected as judges. Ninety-seven of these handed in their votes, and the following eminent Americans received the majority required: George Washington 97, Abraham Lincoln 96, Daniel Webster 96, Benjamin Franklin 94, Ulysses S. Grant 92, John Marshall 91, Thomas Jefferson 90, Ralph Waldo Emerson 87, Robert Fulton 85, Henry W. Longfellow 85, Washington Irving 83, Jonathan Edwards 81, Samuel F.B. Morse 80, David Glasgow Farragut 79, Henry Clay 74, Nathaniel Hawthorne 73, George Pe'abody 72, Robert E. Lee 69, Peter Cooper 69, Eli Whitney 67, John James Audubon 67, Horace Mann 67, Henry Ward Beecher 66, James Kent 65, Joseph Story 64, John Adams 61, William Ellery Channing 58, Elias Howe 53, Gilbert Stuart 52, Asa Gray 51. It will be noticed that the list contains four inventors—Robert Fulton, S. F. B. Morse, Eli Whitney and Elias Howe—while there are but two scientific men—J. J. Audubon and Asa Gray, unless Benjamin Franklin be included. The judges probably were more interested in birds and flowers than in the history of science in America. Audubon and Gray should certainly be included in a list of eminent scientific men, but not to the exclusion of Benjamin Thompson (Count Rumford), Joseph Henry and others. Twenty further names are to be added in 1902 and thereafter five at intervals of five years.

papers and discussions before many of the congresses of the Paris Exposition were technical in character, as is demanded by the advanced and specialized state of the sciences, but there also met at Paris during August and September a number of congresses devoted to the mental and social sciences which perhaps presented more aspects of interest to those who are not special students. The only one of these congresses that can be noted