68 JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY [Vol. 4 



the preparation of the students and the progress they have made in 

 their studies. For more advanced work it includes the most precise 

 methods of microscopical study and all of the refinements that have 

 been evolved with reference to the study of minute anatomy and the 

 special methods of field research to determine ecologic conditions. 



Entertaining lectures about insects or insect habits, while they may 

 still have value as inciting interest in the subject, but which are largely 

 forgotten at the end of the term, go a very short distance in the way 

 of effective training for exact scientific work in entomology. This 

 must come by continued and concentrated individual application. It 

 can be stimulated but not accomplished by the efforts of the teacher. 



At present we may consider that there are at least three phases of ■ 

 the teaching of the subject to be considered: First, the instruction 

 given in scientific institutions, and especially with reference to the 

 training of investigators or teachers who expect to follow the work 

 from a professional standpoint; second, the instruction given in agri- 

 cultural colleges or other schools especially for the purpose of giving 

 information to those who will use it in the application of measures of 

 control for the insects with which they have to contend in their daily 

 life work; and third, the instruction which is now becoming an impor- 

 tant feature given in the shape of extension courses to people outside of 

 college and school environment, and which takes the form of lecture 

 work in the extension course or the publication of instructive matter 

 in agricultural journals or other media of publication. 



It is evident that the methods available in these different lines of 

 instruction must vary, and that while each has its very important 

 place, the effort should be to adopt methods which will be most effect- 

 ive in the different spheres. This may involve the utilization of teach- 

 ers of quite different capacity or training, but, nevertheless, it appears 

 to me must involve for each a thorough and accurate foundation in 

 the essentials of the science. As for the necessity of the different lines, 

 it is clear that there can be no definite progress in the matter of thor- 

 ough training for the two latter groups except as we have the solid 

 basis of fact determined by accurate and prolonged study of the con- 

 ditions upon which to base the instruction given. There is, therefore, 

 the necessity that we should have trained investigators for the acquisi- 

 tion of further knowledge concerning insects, the discovery of which 

 is one of the most important duties of modern entomology. For the 

 purpose of this kind of instruction it is absolutely necessary that there 

 be thorough training in related sciences, as well as in the general 

 foundation in other branches of knowledge. It appears to me that the 

 work in this Hne should naturally be built upon as thorough a founda- 

 tion as required for advanced training in any line of knowledge. Ento- 



