1910] EDITORIAL. 307 



Economy of the supply of workers, and especially those of out- 

 standing ability in research, suggests utilization of their talents to 

 the utmost. Research is not alone for the few if proper guidance 

 can be supplied. Leadership is of great importance to make most 

 highly effective the work of the rank and file. The history of science 

 shows to how large an extent discoveries and important deductions 

 have rested upon long series of accurate observations requiring care 

 and patience, but not necessarily great genius. " The method of 

 science is not a mysterious gift of genius but a practical tool in the 

 discovery of facts and their application to the problems of everyday 

 life." ]Much credit, therefore, belongs to the patient workers whose 

 efforts help to make discovery possible provided their work is so 

 done that it can be knit together. 



In the drift toward specialization, scientific men have more and 

 more segregated themselves into groups each of which confines itself 

 to the study of a special and often narrow field. Specialization rep- 

 resents a great advance. It recognizes the deeper insight, the neces- 

 sity of intensive study, and a differentiation of field and of skill. 

 But specialization is opposed to generalization and may unfit men 

 for it. 



While specialization has served to advance scientific loiowledge 

 there is a danger in its isolation of retarding the solution of com- 

 plex problems like those in agriculture. These problems have often 

 been worked upon from the standpoint of the individual specialist, 

 without particular reference to what investigators in another branch 

 are doing. From the standpoint of the individual a special phase 

 and not the broad problem may become the unit. It does not neces- 

 sarily require a specialist to see a problem, and he may not see it in 

 its entirety. The analysis of a question is an important step toward 

 its study, and such analysis often needs the combined insight of 

 specialists in different fields. Plence the advantage of organization 

 of research around problems in such a way as to unite this viewpoint 

 and means of attack. 



Without administrative attention to the matter, however, correla- 

 tion and joining of effort in accordance with a broad plan is usually 

 not a prominent feature, and the necessary steps for rounding out the 

 information and enabling the final solution must wait upon the dif- 

 ferent gi-oups to voluntarily supply their parts. This tends to make 

 results fragmentary and incomplete as relates to broad general ques- 

 tions, and may also lead to faulty conclusions because the factors are 

 not all taken into account. The determination of how one set of facts 

 and phenomena are related to another, the grouping of observations 

 and experiments so as to derive from them broad general facts or 

 principles, is a more delicate task than the development of isolated 



