NOT MORE MATERIAL BUT MORE ASSIMILATING. 



53 



the nerves. To help the scientific man 

 to thread his way through this scientific 

 wilderness, "Zoological Records" are 

 published at intervals, but as these vol- 

 umes themselves now fill long stretches 

 of shelf room, to find one's path through 

 them is beginning to demand some skill. 

 Soon we shall need an Index to the In- 

 dex. We want at this beginning of the 

 Twentieth Century not fewer to accumu- 

 late or to originate ; but more to dissem- 

 inate, utilize and make available to the 

 non-technical reader who may feel an 

 interest in such matters, but who is com- 

 pelled to remain with his mental longing 

 unsatisfied because, while he knows that 

 what he desires is in existence, he does 

 not know where nor how to find it. \\ e 

 are not willing to part with Luther Bur- 

 bank, nor with any that may resemble or 

 even try to imitate him, but we do want 

 more lovers of the garden, the flowerpot 

 and the window-box. We do not want 

 less of "The Journal of Morphology" 

 but more articles on life forms in our 

 popular magazines ; we want not less of 

 the laborator- but more descriptions of 

 walks in field and forests and how best 

 to profit by such excursions ; we want 

 "The Botanical Gazette, but want still 

 more "The American Botanist;" we 

 want not less of the American Associa- 

 tion for the Advancement of Science, 

 but more of The Agassiz Association; 

 we want the Misses Foote and Strobel 

 who with elaborate appliances have for 

 about fifteen years been studying the 

 anatomy and histology of the earthworm, 

 but we want more numerous Harlan H. 

 Ballard's, who for a quarter of a centure 

 has been laboring to get young and old 

 to observe the forms of life around them ; 

 we want no fewer men like Professor 

 Castle of Harvard, who has issued by the 

 aid of the Carnegie Institution learned 

 monographs on "Heredity of Coat Char- 

 acters in Guinea-pigs and Rabbits," but 

 we do most earnestly desire more men 

 like Professor Ellard of Columbia Uni- 

 versity, who is the leading spirit in pop- 

 ularizing a knowledge of "guinea-pigs" 

 (more correctly called cavies) and of 

 rabbits. Professor Castle, liberally aided 

 by the Carnegie Institution, will reach 

 and do good to a few technical scientists 

 who will mark, learn and inwardly digest 

 the elaborate tables, the x, y. z formu- 



lae, issued on heavy paper with uncut 

 edges, the handsome cover with the seal 

 of the Carnegie Institution of Washing- 

 ton stamped on it. 



But while all this is commendably doing 

 good in- its way, Professor Ellard and 

 his associates. Professor Southwick and 

 Mr. Whittaker, go down into their own 

 scantily laden pockets and take a few 

 dollars from them, and many hours out 

 of busy lives that must labor only to live, 

 and they become prime movers in the 

 American Fur Fanciers' Association ; 

 they have exhibits at the shows ; they 

 write popular articles, and, by means of 

 their cavies and their rabbits, they in- 

 fluence the lives of thousands of persons. 

 Tell me, if you can, why it is that the 

 world still gives its greatest praise to the 

 publication of a list of Choctaw names 

 that costs thousands of dollars, to a book 

 of trigonometrical symbols representing 

 the relation of thickness to length of 

 certain hairs, publications necessarily 

 limited to the smallest conceivable con- 

 stituency, while it will at the same time 

 regard as a sort of harmless, enthusiastic 

 lunatic or deluded "crank" the man who 

 spends his final dollar to influence the 

 minds of thousands of persons who are 

 longing for knowledge for its own sake. 



Religion may have banished to the 

 limbo of the past the angels that were 

 imagined to be trotting on the point of a 

 needle, as well as the combative argu- 

 ments centered on oo or oi ; but in the 

 domain of God's Works the medal of 

 honor, according to the human stand- 

 ard, still seems to be the largest for him 

 who helps in the investigation and pub- 

 lication of the relative length and thick- 

 ness of a hair, or in discovering the seg- 

 mentation of a microscopic egg, rather 

 than to him who gives evidence of noth- 

 ing more imposing than the possession of 

 a commonplace, plebian act of really lov- 

 ing and being influenced by that form 

 of living animal that owned the hair or 

 laved the particular egg. The fault, if 

 fault it may be called, is with the public, 

 not with the great philanthropists, These 

 men will invest their money in monu- 

 ments just as shrewdly as in stocks or 

 goods, to make it go the farthest pos- 

 sible toward supplying what the public 

 demands or applauds. 



But some of us who are working in 



