i6'4 Breeding Plants and Animals. 



have been erroneous. Scientists have too often clung to 

 the tail of Darwin's comet and thought they were mak- 

 ing marked advancement when working on some mat- 

 ter of very small consequence. Some minds have been 

 most satisfied when working out the exact contour 

 of the last studied of the many minute knots or depres- 

 sions on the surface of the bones of some fish, fowl or 

 quadruped. The heads of some of our great university 

 botanical laboratories, even in prairie states, have been 

 very successful in instilling into their students a burn- 

 ing desire to devote their lives to the study of small 

 plants in salt water, called deep sea algae. The fishes 

 have been studied minutely in our geological laborato- 

 ries, the non-economic as well as the economic species. 

 Doing all this in the name of science has generally 

 meant in the name of another proof that Darwin was 

 correct in his main premises. 



Not a few men who pose as broad-mindrrd think- 

 ers disdain the practical relations of science as below 

 their talents. They shrug their shoulders and say: 

 "Oh, I am working on the scientific question.".As the 

 science of mechanics, of electricity and of chemistry 

 have passed beyond this contracted phrase in the minds 

 of their devotees, so biology is about ready to become 

 a creative science. As the sciences relating to non- 

 living matter are pushing the world forward, a science 

 of living forces will make fast advances in the world's 

 affairs. These men have too nearly forgotten that the 

 powers of heredity which Nature used slowly to mould 

 forms into higher forms might be subject to the will 

 of man. Darwin's work of suggesting that man could 

 utilize the laws of life or breeding in rapidly and vastly 

 improving his plants and animals has hardly appealed 

 to these men, conservative only in economic relations. 

 The time has come for workers who have the op- 

 portunities and responsibilities of biological labora- 

 tories to study the laws of life from the standpoint of 

 evolution under the direction of man. Their work 

 permeates the lesser schools, including the smaller 



