19171 EDITORIAL. 403 



the experiment stations in finding properly qualified people for their 

 work. 



If there is to be steady progress, advanced workers need to be pro- 

 duced at a faster rate than formerly. More of the suitable minds 

 and temperaments need to be drawn into it. The provision of research 

 scholarships and graduate fellowships has done considerable to direct 

 men to this field and to afford opportunity for them to acquire the 

 essential broad and rigid training. Such men as are now largely 

 required can not be prepared over night, and hence the plans must 

 be laid with foresight. 



" We must welcome the inventive wonder but not wait for him to 

 happen." The vast majority of that class are handicapped by lack 

 of opportunity for learning the foundations of the sciences they are 

 attempting to shoi't circuit. Their spirit of research and patience in 

 application to an idea are worthy of the investigator, but their de- 

 ficiency lies in the fundamental knowledge which would avoid futile 

 efforts and usually make their work better rewarded. The things 

 that can be discovered by chance or even by earnest but insuflficiently 

 trained and informed effort have in very large measure been found 

 out. The surface has been well skimmed. This was properly the 

 first step, but it is now necessary to dig deep for the new knowledge. 



The potential research worker is not an essentially distinct type, 

 although he may possess certain qualities requisite to success. Con- 

 trary to the usual saying, he is probably less born than made. An 

 eminent biologist has ventured the assertion that about two-fifths of 

 the greatness of a man is born in him and three-fifths made. This 

 leaves much for his environment and education. 



In commenting on this subject. Dr. P. G. Nutting has made some 

 interesting remarks as reported in a recent address. " Some writers," 

 he says, "have spoken of the investigator as a rare individual, to be 

 sifted out from educational institutions with great care for a particu- 

 lar line of work. My personal opinion is that a large percentage of 

 the men students are fitted for research work if properly started along 

 the right line. The investigator should have a mind at once fertile 

 and well trained. His mind should be teeming with new ideas, but 

 he should possess unerring judgment to reject those which are not 

 logical or promising. . . . Fertility of mind is not so much an inborn 

 quality of the mind itself as of the training and association which 

 that mind has had." 



He defines the best preparation for the investigator to be " a thor- 

 ough grounding in the fundamental principles of his science — phys- 

 ics, chemistry, or whatever it may be. If he has this thorough 

 Isnowledge of fundamental principles it is safe to say that in any 

 properly organized research laboratory, with the proper leadership 

 and companions, such a student will have many times as many useful 



