Microbiology Takes fhe Stage 207 



curing a profitable return. These men are scientists only 

 by the chance of some circumstance which offered itself 

 ^vhen making a choice of career. . . . Should an angel of 

 God descend and drive from the Temple of Science all 

 those who belong to the categories I have mentioned, I 

 fear the temple would be nearly emptied. But a few wor- 

 shipers would still remain. . . . For the most part they 

 are strange, taciturn and lonely fellows. And, in spite of 

 this mutual resemblance, they are far less like one another 

 than those whom our hypothetical angel has expelled." 



This brings me to the methods of educating scientists. I 

 am not primarily concerned with secondary or even under- 

 graduate college education. I have in mind graduate train- 

 ing, the education of the future scientist after he has defi- 

 nitely decided upon a field of work and often even upon 

 a type of problem, or at least upon a method of approach 

 to a problem. 



Some educators fill the candidate with information. In 

 time, they make him feel that he knows all there is to be 

 known about a certain field of science, and sometimes all 

 that will ever be known about a given problem, or the 

 approach to the problem. This is, of course, the way to the 

 "expert," the object of hero worship, and often even to 

 that of the mystic in science. Other educators make the 

 candidate feel that he knows only very little, in fact, that 

 no one knows very much in a given field of science, and 

 that the future lies before him to be investigated. 



The first method is by far the more satisfying to the 

 student. He completes his work with a feeling that he is 

 a master of the subject, that he is now prepared to teach 

 others, and often even to show off to others his brilliant 

 knowledge. The second method is the more difficult one, 

 the less acceptable to the student, and often the more dis- 

 couraging. The student who manages, however, to survive 

 this type of training is the more humble in his approach 

 to the unknown universe; he is more inclined to continue 



