5 I THE PEOPLE /A 101 



Columbia in the morning, his wife insisted that he must stop and pick up all 

 six on his way home. Chambers rode the street car to work, then absent- 

 mindedly picked up the umbrella next to him as he prepared to disembark. 

 The lady next to him said, "Hey, mister, that's my umbrella. " With sufficient 

 apology and a charming smile, he persuaded her that he had simply made 

 a mistake. That evening, he entered the street car with his six repaired 

 umbrellas all wrapped up to take home. There was the same lady. She said, 

 "Oh, say, you had a good day today, didn't you?" 



Cooperative Admimstration in a Commimity 



The MBL has always attracted a variety of people, able scientists with various 

 personality quirks that make the community more interesting. From the 

 beginning Whitman stressed that the MBL was a community, consisting of 

 specialty cells organized into a functional, cooperative whole organism. As 

 second director, Lillie chose to perpetuate that view. Whitman imposed his 

 vision of the MBL by running the place in a dictatorial manner and making 

 as many of the decisions as possible himself. Lillie held far more meetings 

 but brilliantly used committees to work things out. Lillie reportedly had little 

 patience with interminable arguments, where everyone saw the positions 

 early on and realized the points of disagreement. Instead of listening further 

 and working to effect some compromise, he appointed a committee, 

 naming the most vocal people on the extremes of a question and giving 

 them the task of bringing fortli a proposal. 



The system generally worked and produced the sense of cooperative 

 administration through committee work. However, perhaps it worked too 

 well in the early decades, because it made people want to stay and be part 

 of the MBL. The same people loved Woods Hole, bought summer places 

 there, and returned summer after summer. With so few housing openings 

 it became too difficult for many, especially married, new researchers to join 

 the group. This created a shortage of new leaders by the 1930s, and it took 

 new housing and new resources to attract new blood. Perhaps tlie same 

 sort of closure could happen again, unless more housing can be provided 

 to keep young people coming back and bringing their own students, who 

 will in turn keep coming back. . . . The MBL is trying to meet this critical 

 need. 



Nonetheless, the sense of a community of research has persisted and, 

 indeed, represents the spirit of the MBL. New people have cdways managed 

 to squeeze in among the "regulars." The decision in 1940 to rotate course 

 instructors more frequently than the nine years then typical, reducing the 

 post to no more than five years, helped to bring in enthusiastic and 

 energetic recruits. The wonderfully appropriate sculpture of a group of 

 three scientists engaged in eager conversation, created by Elaine Pear 



