New York Agricultural Experiment Station. 25 



activity to another subject without seriously checking his momen- 

 tum along the main line of thought. 



2. The teaching habit, especially in a popular way, cannot be 

 considered as an aid, and may easily be a hindrance, to the close 

 analytical mental processes along technical lines which are essen- 

 tial to success in scientific studies. This may explain why the 

 platform efforts of many of our ablest men of science, who seldom 

 attempt- popular discussions, are characterized as " dry," while 

 on the other hand the scientist who gives himself over to culti- 

 vating popular ways of speech and thought often finds himself 

 drifting away from a love and aptitude for severe research. It is 

 not impossible, nor perhaps very unusual, for men of scientific 

 attainments to be efficient public speakers, but nevertheless we 

 cannot ignore the essential difference between the mental status 

 required for popular instruction and that necessary to rigid scien- 

 tific inquiry. 



Certainly that statement so often heard that contact with the 

 people is necessary to the investigator is not substantiated either 

 by theory or observation. Some of the most profound and useful 

 discoveries in science have been reached by men who seldom 

 emerged from their laboratories, and certain American experi- 

 menters whose efforts have been fruitful of important results are 

 those who are seldom heard in public. 



The situation in New York is such as to require a careful 

 adjustment between the experiment station and the institutes in 

 order to best promote the success of both. On the one hand 

 farmers should not assume that the members of the station staff 

 are most useful to them when they speak from the platform, 

 because this is seldom true. They should not be too insistent in 

 their demands for platform effort. On the other hand some sys- 

 tematic and well understood arrangement should be made so that 

 the station workers can anticipate interruptions and thus make 

 such plans as are necessary to an economical use of time. If one of 

 the station staff is to address ten institutes he should be allowed 



