702 EXPEEIMENT STATION RECOED. 



see clearly ourselves, and thus make the proper division of effort and 

 adjustment of funds which are desirable in an institution like the 

 experiment station with a duty and a relationship to the industry of 

 agriculture and to the field of science. 



The terminology as at present employed means little. Words are 

 used loosely and in a way to confsse the public, and what is more 

 serious, in a way to suggest confusion in the mind of the worker 

 using them, of whom a varied service is required. It is true that 

 definitions are difficult to formulate in such a way as to have much 

 meaning, but there are certain quite definite conceptions of research 

 which prevail throughout the field of science, pure and applied. 

 With these recognized, the other boundaries become clearer. 



Beginning at the top, then, one of the most satisfactory definitions 

 of research is " diligent, protracted investigation, especially for 

 the purpose of adding to human knowledge. . . . Specifically in 

 science, a sj^stematic investigation of some phenomenon or series of 

 phenomena by the experimental method, to discover facts or to co- 

 ordinate them as laws." It is, therefore, scientific, it is systematic, it 

 is extended inquiry, it employs the experimental methods, and it pro- 

 ceeds by the discovery of facts, which alone or coordinated contribute 

 to understanding or permit laws or principles to be developed. 



The term investigation is largely used synonymously with re- 

 search. To investigate is " to inquire into systematically ; ascertain 

 by careful research." The same general method and character of in- 

 quiry are implied in both — " systematic examination of some scien- 

 tific question, whether by experiment or mathematical treatment." 

 If there be a difference, it is one of degree rather than of land. 

 Both aim at the advancement of definite knowledge through science. 

 It is therefore the method and essentials of science that we are con- 

 cerned with »in reaching conceptions of research and investigation 

 in any field. 



First of all science is a matter of classification, a bringing together 

 of facts in a system of relations. The function of science is to teach 

 us the relations of facts to each other and their consequences. 

 Science does not teach us the true nature of things — what heat is, 

 what electricity is — it can only give a crude idea of these, but it 

 can teach us the true relation of these things, their attributes, and 

 their consequences. A recently published translation of The Founda- 

 tion of Science^ by H. Poincare, a French mathematician, is re- 

 markably illuminating in defining the nature of science and the 

 method by which it is developed; and while it deals largely with 

 the philosophy of pure mathematical and physical science, it will be 

 found helpful in any study of this subject. 



