80 BURTON EDWARD LIVINGSTON 



versity students, that ability to carry out scientific research de- 

 pends largely upon a knowledge of the experimental methods 

 which have already been used. 



3. The satisfactory problem must, of course, be capable of 

 experimental treatment with the knowledge and facilities which 

 are available. The beginner should not be called upon to devote 

 too much time and energy to the devising of methods and the ob- 

 taining of apparatus. If he be misled in this he almost surely 

 becomes more interested in the methods than in the results ob- 

 tained by their employment. This does not imply that the 

 methods to be used should all be familiar to the worker at the 

 start, only that they should be accessible in the literature, so that 

 he need not actually devise them. The tendency of the circum- 

 scribed problem toward narrow training is best combatted by 

 having the problem, narrow though it be, of such nature that it 

 leads far into the literature of chemistry, physics and animal 

 physiology. 



4. Apparent importance to the science as a whole is a very 

 important criterion in our series. For the best results in all 

 ways, the selected question should be one that interests both the 

 theoretical and the practical worker. The old proverb, mens 

 sana in corpore sano, may be applied, with little alteration, to a 

 science as well as to a man; that science is the most successful in 

 purely theoretical lines which does not hold itself aloof from those 

 practical questions of ordinary life which it alone is capable of 

 answering. As the practical applications of chemistry and physics 

 have aided greatly in their development, so the application of 

 plant physiology to the problems of agriculture et cetera should 

 greatly accelerate the development of the theoretical aspects of- 

 the subject. Furthermore, as has been pointed out, it is prob- 

 ably in the practical application of physiology that many of the 

 most desirable opportunities are apt to occur, and herein lies the 

 greatest hope for the rapid development of the science in general. 



The question of the theoretical importance of a given problem 

 is not so easily settled as is that of its practical weight : it requires 

 something of a prophet to judge rightty in this regard. A good 

 way to attack this question is to ask, will any chapter of the 



