ENTOMOLOGY HOWARD 359 



account of the fact that so many individuals belonf? to two or more 

 of our societies — notably the Entomological Society of America 

 and the American Association of Economic Entomologists. In the 

 1924 edition of Cassino's Naturalists' Directory, Avhich includes all 

 kinds of collectors, teachers, and so on, there are approximately 

 4,450 names. I have checked the names of those indicating any in- 

 terest in entomology and they number 928. 



But this stimulation of popular interest must go farther than the 

 man in the street — the average citizen ; it must uncloister our schools 

 and colleges, not alone the minds of the students, but especially the 

 minds of the teachers. The insect complex should receive the prime 

 attention of a vastly greater body of trained research men in the 

 universities. 



In my presidential address before the American Association for 

 the Advancement of Science in December, 1921, I stated that I had 

 examined the titles of theses for doctorates in American universities 

 for the preceding eight years and found that only a very small per- 

 centage of the output " represents work which can be of the slightest 

 use to humanity in its immediate problem regarding the insect world, 

 and, even those which may prove of use, bear some evidence that 

 the lines of study had already been adopted by students who used 

 them incidentally to gain their degrees and were not suggested by 

 their teachers as promising lines leading toward some great prac- 

 tical outcome." 



I have recently examined the titles for theses for the doctorate 

 degree in American universities for 1922, and find that of 442 such 

 theses 39 concern zoology. Of these 39, 19 were concerned with 

 insects, which is apparently an improvement on the earlier situation; 

 but of these, 5 were papers on genetics m which Drosophila was 

 used, and only 6 of them had any apparent economic bearing. The 

 other 8, however, represented good, sound work, and the results of 

 the investigations on which they were based undoubtedly will help 

 in our broad aim to understand the insect class. 



Dissatisfied as I am with this small proportion among the zoolog- 

 ical theses, I am naturally equally disappointed in the small pro- 

 portion of theses that concern any aspect of zoology, and I am 

 disappointed at the small number of all of the theses for doctorates. 

 The time is coming — and we must do all that we can to hasten it — 

 when not only will research students be at work in our universities 

 in much greater numbers, but when those applying themselves to 

 entomological subjects Avill be multiplied many times. 



In this broader training of the coming workers in entomology 

 the latest conceptions in biology and the latest methods will become 

 known to them and will influence their Avork. We see this coming 



