102 JL 100 YEARS EXPLORING LIFE, 188&-1988 



Cohen and entitled "Woods Hole: The Scientists," depicts the atmosphere. 

 And the story from 1929 about Maurice Rayon, the botanist who worked on 

 silkworms, illustrates the importance of community. Someone heard that 

 an unpleasant person was coming to occupy the one empty research table, 

 so the botanists invented Dr. Rayon and kept his correspondence and 

 research going for a while until the crisis had passed. The table was 

 therefore "occupied" and safe from the undesirable visitor. No one knew 

 just who had done what or who was in the know. 



Today the institution has become too successful and too large to rely on 

 such a cooperative, community approach any longer. Those who call for a 

 return to the old times probably do not understand the complexities of 

 funding and publicity central to any modern research institution. Those 

 who long for those old times have many s3Tnpathizers, but perhaps little 

 foundation in reality. The current system of committees and helpful ad- 

 ministrators at all levels has made many things run more smoothly. 



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One thing that has not changed appreciably is the diversity of people 

 attracted to the MBL, some bringing with them little more than a desire to 

 be here. One young student, Arnold Clark (later a geneticist at the University 

 of Delaware and a long-time MBL regular), was so eager to learn biology that 

 he arrived with no job, only ten dollars, and no place to stay. He went to the 

 head janitor, T. E. Tawell, to ask for a job. Tawell replied that things were 

 very tight just then and asked whether Clark could wait for a while, maybe 

 two days. In two days, Clark returned and was given a job sweeping the 

 floors of Lillie at five in the mornings. He would arrive at that time, have a 

 glass of grapefruit juice with Mr. Tawell, then get straight to work, finishing 

 in time for his morning class and laboratory work. One morning he had to 

 return to the Lillie Building in midmorning. To his dismay, another fellow 

 was sweeping the very floors that he had swept only a few hours earlier. He 

 dejectedly asked Mr. Tawell what he had done wrong. "Nothing," was the 

 answer as Tawell explained, "Well, Arnold, you're not the only one around 

 here who needs a job." 



Others found jobs in the collecting department. When Horace 

 Stunkard arrived ft^om the midwest, where he had been told that he must 

 go to a marine station for a season in order to receive his degree, he had no 

 job either. He applied to George Gray in the supply department and 

 obtained a position helping with collecting, despite his landlubber's igno- 

 rance of marine organisms. He learned fast; he had to. 



Fortunately, various gi^anting agencies have arisen in the course of the 

 twentieth century, so that investigators now arrive wath National Science 

 Foundation (NSF), National Institutes of Health (NIH), or even Guggenheim 



