THE NOBEL PRIZES.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1076, 15 March 1911, Page 4

THE NOBEL PRIZES.

WHERE ARE THE GENIUSES? HOW THE NATIONS STAND. "The annual awarding of five prizes of ,£BUOO each to tho men who have done most for the advancement of medicine, physics, chemistry, literature, and peace is of interest as showing which nations are tho leaders in modern civilisation," writes the "Independent." "For tho production of great men may be taken a» a measure of civilisation, and the judges in this case, tho Nobel Committees of the Swedish academies, and, for the Peace Prize, of the Norwegian Storthing, mo as competent and impartial a tribunal as wo are likely to get. "In tho ten years of tho Nobel Foundation, tho prizes havo been bestowed upon fifty-six individuals, not counting the two peace societies. Their racial distribution is as follows:—Germany, 15; France, 10; England, 7; Holland, Russia, Italy, and Switzerland, 4 each; Sweden, 3; Denmark, Spain, and United States, 2 each; Austria, Uolgium, and Norway, 1 each, "Hero is another indication of the ambitious designs of Germany. She is bent on producing the biggest men a» well as tho biggest ships. Her expansion policy is not confined to geography, but she aims at leadership in all -fields of science, art, and ' literature. Slip has received Nobel Prize 9 foi everything except peace. Yet that is the field in which other nations, especially England, aro most anxious lor Germ-nay to excel. "France, in spite of her diminished population, still bravely challenges her ancient rival—might, indeed, bo held to equal her if wo add to her ten • thosefrom Russia and Switzerland, whom she has served as foster-mother.

"But what shall wo say of tho United States, put into the same class with Spain and Denmark, and below Russia and Holland? As Americans, of course,-our first impulse is to. dispute tile decision of the umpire, and claim that Europe has'tfev'er been properly appreciative of our scientific and literary achievements. But tho Nobel Committees , receive.,.nominations from distinguished men of all'countries, and they expend a sum almost equal to the prizes in the investigation of tho relative merits of. the candidates. In their awards they have shown a catholic if somewhat capricious taste, and an in'tention to disregard national lines. But after making all the allowances that our patriotism or'partiality inspires, wo cannot moke out a case that: is very satis-factory-even to ourselves. "Wo ought at least to beat the Dutch. But this year'* awards add another to the. honours, of. tho Netherlands, twice as many as wo have now, If tho prizes went in proportion to the population, we should have to have sixty-tour Nobel Prizes «to match tho Dutch four, and that is more than the total number. Holland has nbo.ut tho same population as Illinois. Illinois has indeed one Nobel Prize man —Michelsou, of he University of Chicago, though ho was born in Germany. And our only other Nobel man, Rocsevelt, is not lie of Dutch blood ?

"Let us come to close quarters on this question. The four Dutchmen arc Lorentz,, Zeeman, Van't lloff, and Van dor Waals, all physicists. Now, what four physicists havo we to match against them? .Michelson, by decision of the Nobel Committee, is in the same class; that leaves three. Ono other name wc could with confldenco bring forward ns worthy to rank with the best in this ficld-YVillard Gibbs, of Yale, lie died in 1903. Of our living physicists wo will not venture to pick out tho three who should precede theso Dutchmen, for even if wo should find names that undeniably stand as high, it would merely put tho United States on a par with tho Netherlands, not where wo aspire to be, in tho class with Germany, France, and England.

"Out of tho seventeen other Nobel prizes in physics and chemistry, eight havo been lor discoveries in radio-activ-ity, a rich, unpromised land recently opened to science. Hut American scientists have not entered it.

"There is not space here to go through tho whole list in" this way. Perhaps it is fortunate, for while it is easy to say that wo have not received our deserts, it is not easy to suggest American names which should displace' any considerable number, even from our point of view, of- the fifty-four foreigners.

"And now to knock the last bit of conceit, out; of. us comes Professor Cattell, calculating in 'Science' that U.S.A. men of- genius are . getting relatively lower'., but ho -is equally . pessimistic about the whole world;, tliero is, some consolation in that:

" 'The. increase in tho. number of scientific men 'of'standing is only about onchnlf so largo as : the increase in the 1 population of the country. " 'It is sometimes urged that our men of genius are drawn into medicine, law, and business, owing to the large financial rewards of these pursuits. Anyone acquainted personally with some of thoso who earn o"r get tho largest money returns will .probably doubt whether they arc iu fact, men of genius superior to our scientific men. The hundred physicians who have tho largest inebmes selected from the hundred thousand physicians of the country, find the hundred multimillionaires selected from the million men of business, do not obviously surpass in ability or character, the hundred leading scientific men selected from five thousand.

" It is indeed probable that the conditions existing in this country are paralleled in Great Britain, Germany, and l'Vance. In no country does there seem to lie a group of younger men of genius, ready to fill the places of the great men of the last generation. This holds not only for science, but also for other forms of activity. There is no liviug peer of Lincoln, Bismarck, or Cavour. An Academy of Letters is just now being planned in Great Britain, and its proposed membership is trivial compared with what it might have been in the middle of the Victorian era.

" 'It may be argued Hint wc suffer from nn illusion of perspective, Hint many n newspaper writer is tho equal of tho men of letters of Hie pust, that our young doctors of philosophy would discover laws of motion if Newton had not anticipated them. But it would appear to bo a sufficient nnsVcr to write the names of Kipling, Barrei, Shaw, Wells, and Chesterton beside the names of Carlyle. Buskin, Mill, Snencer. Tennyson. Browning, George Eliot, Meredith, Dickens, and Thackcrav, or the names of the leading British, 'German, or French scientific men now active with tho corresponding list of forty years ago.'"