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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



to be read and reckoned with, and are 

 just as much part of the self-styled lit- 

 erature of science as are their magna 

 opera. This would not be worth a com- 

 plaint were it inevitable; but that is 

 just what it is not. If only scientific 

 people in general could be got to care 

 a little about these things, and if only 

 their opinion could be organized and 

 brought to bear more directly on the 

 evil-doers, improvement would soon fol- 

 low. The fact is that we are too con- 

 tent to muddle along, and what is 

 everybody's business is nobody's busi- 

 ness. Hence the student fresh from 

 college, or while still a pupil, is set 

 to attack some problem in science, 

 which, with the help of his professor, 

 he solves in a satisfactory manner. 

 Then he must print, and here, too often, 

 the help of the professor seems to be 

 lacking. The student has had next to 

 no training in the composition of scien- 

 tific articles and none in the preparation 

 of work for the press. He does not 

 know how to find the previous litera- 

 ture, and when found he does not know 

 how to quote it. Having no experience 

 in the use of other men's writings, he 

 does not know what to insert, what to 

 omit, or what faults to avoid. He is, 

 perhaps, a good draughtsman, but his 

 media have been pencil and paint, and 

 he has no idea how to do black-and- 

 white work for the photo-engraver. He 

 begins with a title in the style of the 

 eighteenth century, that takes up three 

 lines and leaves you in the dark as to 

 the contents of his paper. Full of en- 

 thusiasm and imbibed knowledge, he 

 either plunges into his subject without 

 explaining what his subject is, or else he 

 introduces it by a lengthy 'history,' 

 mostly copied from the last worker that 

 preceded him. He ends with a nicely- 

 rounded period, but you search in vain 

 for a summary of his results. 



One cannot be hard on the poor 

 young fellow, who doubtless will do 

 well enough in time; but one can pro- 

 test against the nonchalance that per- 

 mits this state of things. There are 

 two sources from which a remedy may 



spring, and to each we herewith make 

 appeal. First, let the colleges provide 

 instruction in the technique of author- 

 ship, just as they provide it in the 

 technique of research. This will not 

 help to swell the flood of publication, too 

 great already; rather it will diminish 

 it, by entailing more rigorous prepara- 

 tion on would-be authors. Let the stu- 

 dent be taught the conventional rules 

 that govern the formal aspect of his 

 science, just as he is taught the laws 

 of chemical combination or dental for- 

 mulae. In zoology and botany, for in- 

 stance, he should be taught the rules 

 of nomenclature, or at least those gen- 

 erally followed, and taught how to 

 write the names of animals and plants 

 in the accepted manner. He should be 

 made to study the classical memoirs of 

 great masters from the noint of view of 

 presentation — of manner rather than of 

 matter. And even then he should not 

 be turned loose on an unwilling public, 

 but should be practised in writing and 

 drawing for the press, in proof-correct- 

 ing and so forth. The examiners of 

 doctoral theses should consider their 

 style and arrangement no less than 

 their contents, and, if necessary, should 

 insist on formal alterations being made 

 before they give permission to publish. 

 So much for the universities. The 

 second source of help lies in the editors, 

 whether of independent periodicals or 

 of publishing societies. The editor has, 

 by tacit agreement, great powers. But 

 in the case of publications devoted to 

 pure science, those powers often seem 

 to be very little used. There is a preju- 

 dice against interfering with an author's 

 statement of his case; for here the sub- 

 stance is regarded as everything and the 

 form as nothing, and an editor fears 

 lest, in re-shaping the form, he may 

 hack away an essential portion of the 

 substance. This delicacy is likely to be 

 more appreciated by the author in ques- 

 tion than by his readers. The editors 

 of purely scientific publications labor, 

 of course, under a peculiar disadvantage 

 in that both the contribution and the 

 publication of matter are voluntary of- 



