FIGHTING THE INSECTS 



fcssionally I hadn't much chance. In those days it was the custom 

 of scientific men to take all of the credit for work done by their 

 assistants. This was considered quite ethical, in fact, the proper 

 thing to do. The assistants accepted the situation, not because it 

 was right, but because there was nothing they could do about it. 

 I seldom looked at a scientific paper published during that period 

 without wondering who really wrote it. A most interesting and 

 lengthy treatise could be written under some such title as 

 "Hidden Bibliography." But it would require enormous research, 

 and probably would involve some injustices to famous names. 

 I heard the question argued as late as 1895 at the Cosmos Club, 

 and remember that Major C. E. Dutton, a very well-known 

 seismologist, and Colonel Garrick Mallory, an equally well- 

 known ethnologist, were especially vehement in their claims 

 that the chief owns the brains of his assistant, who is paid for 

 their use. It is true that both these men were army officers, and 

 perhaps this accounted for the vehemence, but the same attitude 

 was held by many other heads of investigatory work. 



From this prevalent fashion, it resulted that my chief signed 

 everything I wrote, and often without changing a word. It is 

 true that I did not do much during the six or seven months 

 that followed, since Professor Riley resigned in a fit of temper, 

 and my old teacher, Professor Comstock, was appointed as his 

 successor. 



Quite recently, in looking over some letters I wrote to my 

 mother during these early days, I found one written in 1884, 

 which expresses, rather sententiously, my ideas at that time on 

 this subject. I said, "Whenever you see a treatise by Professor or 

 Dr. So-and-so in which he says in his introduction, 'I cheerfully 



acknowledge the help of my assistant, Mr. ,' or words to 



that effect, you can make up your mind that the professor wrote 

 the introduction and the assistant the treatise." 



[30] 



