66 JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY [Vol. 4 



into this four years the "everything of something," as well, the results 

 are liable to be unsatisfactory in both directions. For the iiittending 

 graduate student, therefore, I would urge a broad undergraduate 

 course, with plenty of chemistry, physics and botany, but with sufficient 

 attention paid to the cultural subjects, and those connected wdth our 

 duties as citizens, to give breadth in every way. Languages as tools, 

 aside from their cultural value should not be omitted, and if such a 

 course as this for the future graduate student in entomology must 

 mean a reduction in the amount of undergraduate entomology which 

 he could take, I would still advise such a course, believing that the 

 concentrated study of the one subject to follow after graduation would 

 be much more valuable when placed upon such a foundation. 



Starting with this, the graduate student is in a position to go ahead 

 rapidly. I hardly think it comes within my province to discuss lines 

 of work for graduate students, but if we remember that after com- 

 pleting his course, he will be expected to have personal experience in 

 methods of control, methods of rearing insects and in identification, 

 it would seem desirable that these three lines of work should be given 

 great stress in his training, and at the Massachusetts Agricultural 

 College, it is the present purpose to recognize this by requiring an 

 original piece of research in each of these three fines, to constitute the 

 thesis, rather than one piece of work, perhaps three times as large. 

 The student may get out a splendid thesis, well worthy of an advanced 

 degree, on the median segment for example, requiring nearly all his 

 time for three years to prepare, but it is probable that one of the first 

 questions he will meet on taking a position thereafter, will be as to the 

 relative merits of, two different brands of arsenate of lead for spraying. 

 Under such conditions as these, the writer favors what he ma}" term 

 the tripartite thesis. 



In conclusion, an opinion cannot be too strongly- expressed as to the 

 amount of supervision to be given graduate students. The idea of 

 letting a graduate student "work out his own salvation," without any 

 supervision is, in the opinion of the writer, a serious mistake. The 

 average student on graduation has l^een so carefully led by the hand 

 and guided for four years, that he really does not know how to take a 

 step by himself. Of course, he will learn, but even the best man loses 

 much time and often gets discouraged in this process. It would seem 

 wiser to l)egin graduate work under much the same supervision as that 

 given to undergraduates, but to gradually reduce this, so that after 

 six months or so, a man is generally working for himself. Thus, the 

 time and money of the student are saved, greater progress is made, 

 and the great change from the nature of undergraduate work to that 

 of graduate work is successfully bridged over. In this way, the stu- 



