NATURE 



[April 29, 1922 



how a Minister of Education can agree to a reduction 

 of 300,000/. to the universities when in the debate 

 just referred to he stated that the universities " were 

 making contributions to learning and science exceeding 

 in quality and amount that ever given before," and 

 further that " it was within his knowledge that there 

 was work proceeding in the laboratories of this 

 country which, if the hopes of scientific men engaged 

 upon it were realised, would repay the countr/ over 

 and over again for the cost." Mr. Fisher must surely 

 know that such a reduction in the grant cannot be 

 made without serious consequences. The sum may 

 be small in comparison with the Education Vote 

 as a whole, but it is most certainly large in 

 comparison with the funds at the disposal of the 

 universities. 



The President of the National Union of Teachers 

 in his address to the Annual Conference on April 17 

 was at pains to point out that money spent on 

 scientific and technical education was productive 

 expenditure which would become the very source 

 of national income. And he is right. He insisted 

 that more money was required to enlarge our 

 control over the resources of nature. ''We shall 

 want," he says, "more money to build and equip 

 our technical schools and colleges. We shall want 

 more money to train our scientists and technicians, 

 for we could not float a world trade on scientific 

 ignorance and technical inefficiency." Again he is 

 right. Yet the Government is proposing to reduce 

 its grants for such purposes ! 



Already thoughtful men and women are realising 

 that the hope of the future in commercial life, as 

 well as in intellectual life, lies largely with our 

 universities and colleges, and that any action 

 which will prejudice their development will mean a 

 national loss. While we hold to the same opinion 

 we are not prepared to say that the educational 

 system of this country is run on sound economic 

 lines or that the system itself from a purely educa- 

 tional point of view is beyond criticism. Any one 

 with inside knowledge would have no lack of 

 material for criticism. Our point is that the proposed 

 economies in higher education and research are specious 

 economies which in the near future will entail losses 

 out of all proportion to the slight temporary gain they 

 effect. On the other hand, we believe it would not be 

 a difficult matter to discover ways of economising 

 which would not entail such serious consequences as 

 those proposed. We can only hope that Parliament 

 will show a real appreciation of the inevitable con- 

 sequences of the proposed drastic cuts, and that 

 proper means will be taken to prevent so great a 

 calamity to higher education and research. 

 NO. 2739, VOL. 109] 



Studies in Symbiosis. 



Tier tmd Pflanze in intrazellularer Symbiose. By 

 Prof. P. Buchner. Pp. xi + 462 + Tafel 2. (Berlin: 

 Gebriider Borntraeger, 1921.) 114 mk. 



THE extent and significance of symbiosis are 

 matters of general interest. The delicate 

 adjustments that enable yeasts to interpenetrate the 

 tissues of insects, algae those of corals, and bacteria 

 those of cuttlefish, resulting in mutual advantages to 

 both partners in each association, form an evolutionar\' 

 topic of no little importance. But the subject assumes 

 practical and economic value when it is realised that 

 the nutrition of our domestic ruminant animals is 

 carried out not solely by their own enzymes and 

 tissues, but is due partially to the activity of symbiotic 

 bacteria (and probably to Protozoa also) which live 

 within the cattle. So great has been the increase of 

 our knowledge of these associations in the last fifteen 

 years, that the large volume under review does not 

 cover the whole ground, but deals only with those 

 animals in which the invading micro-organisms take 

 up positions within certain cells of the other partner. 

 The no less interesting cases of symbiosis in which 

 the invader lies in the cavity of its partner's body (as 

 in cattle) are, with one exception, deliberately omitted. 



Accustomed as we are to think of each being as 

 working out its own salvation and that of its race, 

 the thought of deep-seated infection of diverse animals 

 by myriads of alien microscopic yeasts or bacteria 

 which invade even the very germ cells and are con- 

 veyed to children's children, has in it something 

 repulsive. Such cases, we are inclined to conclude, 

 are exceptional. The bulk of life stands on its own 

 ground. Symbiosis is at best a secondary phenomenon 

 of the struggle for subsistence. It is not even a safe com- 

 promise. Co-operation may mean litigation. Mutual 

 benefit gives place only too easily to one-sided benefit 

 or to mutual harm. The " symbiote " becomes a 

 parasite. Requiring such a delicately adjusted balance, 

 symbiosis, we argue, can never have been an evolu- 

 tionary factor of real and widespread significance. 

 In opposition to the entrance of such foreign corpuscles, 

 the body would exert all its antigens as against foreign 

 proteids or as it does against the entrance of pathogenic 

 spores. The struggle would lead to the survival of 

 those forms which repelled the invaders or which 

 tolerated their presence whilst maintaining an easy 

 mastery. 



The facts of biology, however, imperfectly known 

 as they are and still more imperfectly apprehended in 

 their full significance, show that the more carefully 

 animal life is studied, the more numerous and intimate 

 are the cases of symbiosis that investigation discloses. 



