1917] EDITORIAL. 105 



but a broader understanding of teaching and research and a wider 

 horizon. 



. Perhaps it may transpire that the plan of employing graduate 

 students as part-time research assistants may tend to promote migra- 

 tion rather than otherwise, by affording the means which will enable 

 it. The added expense of going to another institution might often 

 deter students of limited means from following that course, and 

 result either in their remaining at their home college or having to be 

 content with a shorter period of study. With proper helpful guid- 

 ance on the part of the teacher, therefore, the advantage which Dr. 

 Lipman claims, to the student as well as to the institution, may be 

 realized and the dangers which Dr. Jones has so pertinently pointed 

 out be avoided. 



Evidently the stations can not depend too extensively on assistants 

 of this type, and provision will still need to be made Avhich will 

 meet the special requirements of the work they have in hand. The 

 graduate students will therefore in a measure supplement the regular 

 forces of the stations, pro\iding relatively cheap assistance in the 

 technical features. 



Many of the stations have, of late especially, felt the necessity of 

 giving attention to simulating advanced study on the part of their 

 assistants and making some form of provision or requirement for 

 it. It has become a well established practice at several stations to 

 require young men entering the work to take advanced study from 

 time to time as a prerequisite to advancement. Others, while exact- 

 ing this requirement, have gone so far as to prohibit the taking up 

 of graduate work at the local institution while retaining their posi- 

 tion in the station. This may be due to a disinclination to combine 

 station service and graduate stud}^, or to a belief that the student 

 should go away for such study. 



The plan has worked out somewhat differently at different stations, 

 but in general the present tendency is to recognize the necessity for 

 occasional furlough to take advanced work, in order that the en- 

 thusiasm and mental alertness of the investigator may not suffer 

 from monotony and a stereotyped activity. 



Most of the endowed universities and other institutions of higher 

 learning now give credit for research work done on recognized proj- 

 ects at the experiment stations, some requiring only a single year's 

 residence at the institution for a doctor's degree. Many of the 

 younger station men are availing themselves of this opportunity, and 

 the number is increasing from year to year. The plan has been 

 found to work to the mutual advantage of both the station and the 

 research workers. Several of the colleges have an arrangement for 

 sabbatical leave, with part pay, for purposes of study. This is not 



