ABSTRACT
The "principle of economy", which amounts to the determination to see things as they are and not as a Utopian illusion, has led us to define the primary mission of the university. The university and the laboratory are distinct, correlative organs in a complete physiology. Science is an activity too sublime and subtle to be organized in an institution. Science is neither to be coerced nor regimented. Hence it is harmful, both for the higher learning and for investigation, to attempt to fuse them into one instead of letting them work hand in hand in an exchange of influence as free and spontaneous as it is intense. In the thick of life's urgencies and its passions, the university must assert itself as a major "spiritual power", higher than the press, standing for serenity in the midst of frenzy, for seriousness and the grasp of intellect in the face of frivolity and unashamed stupidity.
