A BIOLOGICAL STATION. 



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from the time of its adoption, or with those who have been 

 compelled to develop their own ideal from all that they could 

 learn by actual experiment and study ? Which is the broader 

 ideal, and with which are the possibilities for progressive growth 

 least limited ? 



In what consists the argument for limitation to research? 

 I have yet to learn of a single important advantage which is 

 necessarily dependent upon this limitation. Is instruction a 

 burden to the investigator, which interferes with his work ? 

 That objection is frequently raised, and it is about the only one 

 that we need stop to consider here. That instruction interferes 

 with investigation when it is so arranged as to absorb all or the 

 larger share of one's time no one will deny; but is it not easy 

 to so divide the time that the investigator will find rest and 

 improvement from the instruction he gives ? Certainly it is 

 possible, as we have fully demonstrated at Wood's Holl, and 

 that, too, with only the most limited means. With a laboratory 

 open throughout the year, the investigators connected with it 

 would scarcely feel a few weeks' instruction as an impediment. 

 Not only have we shown that such an accommodation or adjust- 

 ment of functions is possible and tolerable even in our vaca- 

 tions, but we have also learned that there are some important 

 advantages growing out of it which are impossible under limita- 

 tion to research. To my mind these advantages far outweigh 

 any and all possible objections. 



The advantages that I have in mind are not those of means 

 for running the laboratory, which could be supplied by an 

 endowment, but those which add directly to the progress of the 

 investigator and to the advancement of his work. If important 

 advantages exist in connection with instruction even where 

 there is no endowment, which are not available with an endow- 

 ment, where instruction is excluded, we can readily make our 

 choice of types. 



I suppose no investigator, not even the most confirmed 

 claustrophil, would deny that instruction compels thinking and 

 improves ability to express ideas as well as to describe facts. 

 So does writing; so does investigation itself. True, and if 

 that is to their credit, it must be the same to instruction. But 



