CORRESP ONDENCE. 



701 



swamp air and swamp water, and furnish 

 an argument for the antidote theory rather 

 than otherwise. 



We can hardly accord to Professor King 

 the soundness of his argument, that be- 

 cause miasma and mosquitoes prevail at 

 night, therefore the mosquito is the author 

 of miasma. Does the mosquito produce the 

 miasma in the air, or create the disease by 

 his " bite " ? Suppose we say bats fly only 

 at night, and dew falls only at night, there- 

 fore the bats create the dew ? 



The night air may be congenial to both 

 malaria and mosquitoes, as it may be to 

 both bats and dew, without any further rela- 

 tionship. If Professor King will spend a 

 week or a month in May or June in our 

 northern cedar-lands, I will warrant him 

 more mosquito-bites to the square inch of 

 exposed person than there are pounds of at- 

 mospheric pressure on the same surface, and 

 I will also guarantee him safety from all ma- 

 larial disease. F. R. Stebbins. 

 Adeian, Michigan, October 8, 1883. 



A REPLY TO EDITORIAL STATEMENTS. 

 Messrs. Editors: 



In your editorial comments on the clas- 

 sical question, you refer to Germany as fa- 

 vorable to the old education on account of 

 royalty and the Bismarckian regime ; you 

 also quote from " Science " a condemnation 

 of German scientific writers. Allow me, in 

 the briefest manner, to set you right on these 

 two points. Whatever you may think of 

 Bismarck, you should, in the present discus- 

 sion, at least state that Bismarck does not 

 favor Greek, but thinks it is only studied 

 for a make-believe of mental superiority ; 

 also that he has emphatically stated that 

 the state must take its civil officers wherever 

 they can be found, efficiency being the only 

 test, not the approval, etc., of the university ; 

 and, thirdly, you should bear in mind that 

 Bismarck is no favorite with the Berlin Uni- 

 versity, the latter being much more of your 

 opinion as to the " regime " now existing 

 in Prussia than of an opinion favorable to 

 Bismarck. 



While I share your views as to the aris- 

 tocratic tendencies that take shelter under 

 the Latin-Greek education, I yet believe that 

 respect for royalty in Germany is fostered 

 mainly by the common school, while the 

 universities are decidedly democratic in their 

 influence. 



As regards the lack of clearness and 

 order formerly so common in German scien- 

 tific writers, I beg to call your attention to 

 the many excellent scientific writers that 

 Germany can now point to, when a com- 

 parison with other countries is instituted. 

 I believe a somewhat careful investigation 

 would startle those who accept the common 

 dogma that German scientific writers are 

 obscure and deficient in order. Schleiden, 



the botanist, Carl Yogt, Du Bois-Reymond) 

 Virchow, Haeckel, are only a few of the 

 best-known German scientists who excel in 

 order and clearness, and in the graces of 

 style. No modern literature has scientific 

 works superior in order, clearness, and style, 

 to those of George Forster and Jacob Mole- 

 schott, and yet the former excelled, and the 

 latter still excels, in scientific work. In a 

 country like Germany, where so many write, 

 bad writing is apt to be more readily no- 

 ticed. As for the absence of important 

 generalizations by German scientists, I think 

 this subject should be treated separately. 

 Kepler's grand generalizations were written 

 in Latin ; Leibnitz published many of his 

 in French; there are other authors distin- 

 guished for important generalizations, who, 

 if they can not compare with Darwin, yet 

 occupy a high rank for instance, Dr. J. R. 

 Mayer, who first formulated the great law 

 of heat-equivalents, and hence of the con- 

 servation of force. 



I should be glad to find that your sense 

 of justice is strong enough to make the cor- 

 rections your statements and the extract re- 

 quire. C. A. E. 

 Iowa City, December 26, 1SS3. 



Our sense of justice is perhaps not very 

 strong, but it is put to no strain by publish- 

 ing the foregoing. We referred to the 

 " Bismarckian regime " only as a name for 

 the present phase of the administration 

 of the German Government, and our argu- 

 ment could not depend upon any man's per- 

 sonal views, because it rested upon the 

 broad declaration of the university authori- 

 ties that the ascendency of the classics must 

 be maintained for church and state reasons. 

 It is interesting to know that Bismarck re- 

 gards Greek as a humbug, but he would 

 probably be the last man to deny that 

 shams may have their political uses. 



The quotation from " Science " was made, 

 not because we approved or considered per- 

 tinent all that it said, but because it testi- 

 fied decisively to the neglected condition of 

 the native speech on the part of a people 

 long given over to the worship of classical 

 ideals. Our correspondent recognizes " the 

 lack of clearness and order formerly so com- 

 mon in German scientific writers." He, 

 however, enumerates several recent writers 

 that are not open to this charge. But are 

 not those exceptions to a general practice ? 

 and would it not have been somewhat more 

 to the point to inform us whether or not 

 these writers were assiduous cultivators of 

 the classics ? Ed. 



