August i8, 1923J 



NA TURE 



2X\ 



but marked improvement appears to be near real- 

 isation. Safety in a helicopter presents unsolved 

 difficulties. 



What, then, is the purpose of the helicopter ? Pre- 

 sumably the use is to be military and secret. Outside 

 opinion has not made any satisfying guess, and in these 

 circumstances men of science, as well as aeronautical 

 engineers, are disturbed by the evidence which this 

 prize scheme gives as to the direction of Air Ministry 

 policy. It is not expected that any appreciable part 

 of the fund will be called on, and the whole sum would 

 not be grudged to the producers of a new and useful 

 type of aircraft. The fear is that, in following a " will 

 of the wisp," insufficient attention will be given to 

 systematic research on which, in the past, British 

 constructors have been able to maintain a high quality 

 for their productions. L. Bairstow. 



Life of a Naturalist and Teacher. 



The Days of a Man : being Memories of a Naturalist, 

 Teacher, and Minor Prophet of Democracy. By 

 David Starr Jordan. Vol. i : 1851-1899. Pp. 

 xxix-i-710-1-56 plates. Vol. 2: 1900-1921. Pp. 

 xxi-i-906 + 56 plates. (Yonkers-on-Hudson, N.Y. : 

 World Book Co. ; London : G. G. Harrap and Co., 

 Ltd., 1922.) 15 dollars. 



THE Days of a Man " is the title chosen by Dr. 

 David Starr Jordan for his autobiography. 

 Dr. Jordan, who was born in 1851, has been for many 

 years the leading ichthyologist in America, and is the 

 author of a large number of memoirs on fishes, generally 

 written in collaboration with his pupils. Of these the 

 best known is the monumental " Fishes of North 

 America " (i 896-1 900) by Jordan and Evermann, but 

 perhaps his work on the Fishes of Japan marks the 

 greatest advance, for these had been comparatively 

 little studied until his collecting expedition in 1900. 



Dr. Jordan's early tastes were for botany, in which 

 he was so well-versed that even as a student at Cornell 

 he was teaching this subject. He was first led to study 

 fishes by attending a vacation course for science 

 teachers organised by Louis Agassiz, and for many 

 years afterwards he generally spent his vacations in 

 collecting and reporting on the fishes of some region, at 

 first on his own account and afterwards for the American 

 Government, which ultimately sent him so far afield 

 as the Sandwich Islands. It is perhaps worth men- 

 tion that he invented the name " Rainbow Trout " 

 in 1878. 



Notwithstanding his distinction as an ichthyologist, 

 we are inclined to think that Dr. Jordan's best work 

 has been educational ; and this applies even to 

 ichthyology, since nearly all American ichthyologists 



NO. 2807, VOL. I 12] 



were taught by him. In 1879, at the early age of 28, 

 he became professor of natural history in the University 

 of Indiana, and did so well that in 1885 he was elected 

 president. He had now an opportunity to show his 

 genius for organisation and to put his educational ideas 

 into practice. There were many difficulties, but he 

 overcame them. In his own words : 



" In 1886 I made some sweeping changes, doing 

 away with the fixed curriculum and adjusting the work 

 so that practically all the subjects hitherto taught in 

 the University, being elementary in their nature, were 

 relegated to the first two years. Further than this, we 

 instituted a ' major subject ' system, by which each 

 junior or third-year student was required to choose a 

 speciality or ' major,' and to work under the immediate 

 advice of his ' major professor,' whose counsel in 

 details he was obliged to secure. An individual course 

 of study was thus framed for each one. This system, 

 which has now stood the test of more than thirty years 

 in Indiana, Stanford, and elsewhere, was originally 

 developed by a committee consisting of Dr. Hans 

 C. G. von Jagemann, Dr. William Lowe Bryan, and 

 myself. Its purpose was to enable every one to make 

 the most of his four college years, by seeking the best 

 teachers and the subjects best suited to his tastes 

 and capacity." 



Whilst carrying out these and other reforms Dr. 

 Jordan undertook propaganda work, giving lectures 

 that made the aims and purposes of the university 

 understood in the State of Indiana. At the same time 

 he showed wise judgment in making new appointments, 

 Campbell, the botanist, and Branner, the geologist, 

 being two of his early choices. 



Jordan's success at Indiana was so great that in 

 1 891 he was the obvious man to select as president of 

 the newly established Stanford University. Here he 

 had a congenial task, to plan out from the beginning 

 the lines on which a university should be run and to 

 select what men he liked to help him in the work. 

 At first all went well, but in 1893 Stanford's death led 

 to unexpected legal difficulties with regard to his 

 estate, which seriously hampered the university, and 

 after this matter had been satisfactorily disposed of 

 came the earthquake of 1906, which wrecked a great 

 part of the university buildings. On the morning of 

 the earthquake Dr. Jordan received an invitation to 

 become secretary of the Smithsonian Institution ; in 

 other circumstances he would probably have accepted, 

 but he felt that it was his duty to stay at Stanford, 

 and he did so, becoming Chancellor of the University 

 in 1913, and finally retiring in 191 6, at the age of sixty- 

 five. He has good reason to be proud of the flourishing 

 condition and the high reputation of Stanford, and of 

 the success of its graduates. 



Dr. Jordan is a man with high ideals and strong 

 convictions, and he is a keen observer who has travelled 

 in many lands. His views on men and matters are 



