PREPARATION 



ming than others, and one should not try to skim closely reasoned 

 or condensed writing or any work which one intends to make 

 the object of a careful study. 



Most scientists find it useful to keep a card index with brief 

 abstracts of articles of special interest for their work. Also the 

 preparation of these abstracts helps to impress the salient features 

 of an article in the memory. After reading quickly through the 

 article to get a picture of the whole, one can go back to certain 

 parts, whose full significance is then apparent, re-read these and 

 make notes. 



The recent graduate during his first year often studies some 

 further subject in order better to fit himself for research. In the 

 past it has been common for English-speaking research students 

 to study German if they had no knowledge of that language and 

 had already learnt French at school. In the biological sciences I 

 think students would now benefit more from taking a course in 

 biometrics, the importance of which is discussed in the next 

 chapter. In the past it was important to be able to read German, 

 but the output of Germany in the biological and medical sciences 

 has been very small during the last ten years, and it does not 

 seem likely to be considerable for some years to come. Scientists 

 in certain other countries, such as Scandinavia and Japan, who 

 previously often published in the German language, are now 

 publishing almost entirely in English, which, with the vast expan- 

 sion of science in America as well as throughout the British 

 Commonwealth is becoming the international scientific language. 

 Unless the student of biology has a special reason for wanting to 

 learn German, I think he could employ his time more usefully 

 on other matters until German science is properly revived. In this 

 connection it may be worth noting the somewhat unusual view 

 expressed by the great German chemist, Wilhelm Ostwald, who 

 held that the research student should refrain from learning 

 languages. He considered that the conventional teaching of Latin, 

 in particular, destroys the scientific outlook. ^'^ Herbert Spencer 

 has also pointed out that the learning of languages tends to 

 increase respect for authority and so discourage development of 

 the faculty of independent judgment, which is so important, 

 especially for scientists. Several famous scientists — including 

 Darwin and Einstein — had a strong distaste for Latin, probably 



5 



