358 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1925 



hungerino; for information to take back to their hundreds of thou- 

 sands of jiupils everywhere. 



Many of you may have noticed that a committee '' on the place 

 of the sciences in education " has been constituted by the American 

 Association for the Advancement of Science. This committee in- 

 cludes representatives of high schools as well as of universities and 

 others. There is a place under this committee for the consideration 

 of secondary school science. In an article by Dr. O. W. Caldwell, 

 in the journal Science for December 12 last, tliere is mucli informa- 

 tion regarding the teaching of science. A significant table, for 

 example, is given of the distribution of over 47,000 high school 

 pupils in Washington in the different subjects in which they were 

 enrolled. Of a total of G,;j;j2 in science, 1,061 were enrolled in 

 zoolog}^ Here, obviously, is an opportunity for the stressing of 

 the duty of teachers to include work in entomology, and the repre- 

 sentative conmiittee in charge of this subject should add an ento- 

 mologist to its members as a ])reliminary step to the securing, not 

 only in higli schools, but in secondary schools as well, of such in- 

 struction in entomology as wmU arouse the interest of boys and girls 

 in entomology and make them realize its enormous importance. 



I am perfectly aware that what I have just said may sound as 

 though it were intended for economic entomologists only, but I 

 must emphasize again and again that there is no entomologist, 

 whatever his line of work, wdio is not concerned and Avho is not 

 helping very greatly. 



Next to the education of the public, tlie number of workers must 

 very greatly be increased ; and i)ub]ic education Avill undoubtedly lead 

 to this increase, since, by the stimulation of (he interest of the people, 

 the minds of capable young men and young women will be open to 

 the call for service, funds Avill come from legislative Dodies, and 

 the waj^ will be opened. 



With the education of the public should come (and I hope it will) 

 a great increase in the number of so-called amateur entomologists. 

 We all know that men of this class have done magnificent work in 

 the past; that in fact they did the bulk of the work down to compara- 

 tively recent years, and that they still constitute a very large per- 

 centage of the numbers of most of the great entomological societies. 



How many so-called entomologists are there now? It is difficult 

 to say. In the last edition of Cattell's "American Men of Science " 

 there are approximately 9,500 names. Of these, 217 are recorded as 

 entomologists. I have recently estimated the number of members of 

 the large publishing entomological societies of the world and find 

 that they probably reach o^•er G.OOO and of these more than 2,000 

 are American. This latter number must be reduced, however, on 



