A Supreme Court of Science.
Mr. J. Pease Norton, Professor of Economics in Yale University, argues in the Popular Science Monthly for a "Supreme Court of Science" before which some of the mooted questions of the world, questions over which there is legislation, could be presented and decided. As an illustration he mentions compulsory vaccination, to which there is powerful opposition. He says: "School children are being vaccinated on a wholesale scale as a precaution against a danger which is probably little greater than the danger of being struck by lightning." Now the question is, Are such laws necessary or advisable? Have they not been passed in most legislatures on the recommendation of a committee, the members of which know nothing of the scientific aspect of the question? Is there not grave danger in the vaccination itself? And after all it is not a sure preventive. A scientific court could not make it worse.