NA TURE 



[July 15, 1922 



metallurgy. A satisfactory feature of the book is the 

 calculation of furnace charges in reference to typical 

 metallurgical operations. As has been generally in- 

 dicated, the book gives a good, if at times too brief, 

 account of the principal operations involved in the 

 metallurgy of the six metals discussed. It is well 

 printed, particularly well illustrated, and bears evidence 

 of careful and judicious preparation. 



H. C. H. C. 



Scientific Activities in the United States : 

 A Biologist's View. 



Universities and Scientific Life in the United States. 

 By Prof. Maurice Caullery. Translated by James 

 H. Woods and Emmet Russell. Pp. xvii + 269. 

 (Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press ; 

 London : Oxford University Press, 1922.) iay. 6d. 

 net. 



BEFORE the war inter-university exchange of 

 professors was much in vogue as between 

 Germany and America. More recently several ex- 

 changes of this kind have taken place between America 

 and France, and Prof. Caullery's book is a result — 

 a very useful result — of one of these exchanges. It 

 gives a remarkably lucid and sympathetic interpreta- 

 tion of impressions received by the writer during a 

 stay of five months in America in 1916, when he filled 

 the post of exchange professor of biology at Harvard 

 and visited many of the principal seats of learning 

 in the United States. 



The greater part of the book is devoted to the 

 universities and colleges as centres of research and as 

 providing the environment in which future workers 

 are trained. These institutions have, in general, 

 envisaged as their main task the training and equip- 

 ment of their students for successful leadership in 

 all branches of social activity ; and they have come 

 to recognise that with the incessant extension of the 

 fields of application of science to social needs it concerns 

 them to provide the best possible teaching in applied 

 as well as in pure science. Thus the tendency is for 

 science, as the basis of preparation for practical life, 

 to inspire all the activity of the university. 



It is sometimes asserted that the study of science 

 in America is apt to be cramped by an excessively 

 utilitarian bias, and such a bias has undoubtedlv 

 characterised the State universities, most of which 

 originated in the " Colleges for Agriculture and 

 Mechanic Arts " established under the Morrill Act 

 of 1862. The policy inaugurated by this Act was one 

 which Congress adopted owing to the refusal oi the 

 independent colleges to provide . urgently needed 

 NO. 2750, VOL. I IO j 



teaching in technology. About the same time the 

 growth of scientific knowledge led to the breaking 

 down of the old uniform curriculum and its replace- 

 ment by the elective system, and to the organisation 

 of " Graduate Schools " by the more important 

 colleges, which thus became full universities and 

 began to cultivate a spirit of original research. Com- 

 petition with the new State universities soon led to the 

 abandonment of the attitude of aloofness in regard 

 to applied science and proved beneficial to the interests 

 of pure science, both because the broadening of the 

 basis of studies in the old institutions brought them 

 into closer touch with the nation at large and greatly 

 increased their prosperity and resources, including 

 laboratory equipment, and because the State universi- 

 ties have made, and continue to make, successful 

 efforts towards rivalling the others in the cultivation 

 of scientific research of all kinds. 



In this connexion Prof. Caullery is able to elucidate 

 and point his argument by reference to science progress 

 in French institutions, where the Napoleonic system 

 of public instruction has shown itself deficient in 

 adaptability to changed conditions and faculties 

 of science have few points of contact with schools of 

 technology. In America adaptation to their environ- 

 ment is reflected in the remarkable growth shown 

 by the universities and colleges during the past thirty 

 years. The student population of the collegiate and 

 graduate departments has twice doubled within this 

 period, and shows, according to statistics summarised 

 recently in Nature of April 1, p. 425, no tendency 

 towards abatement of this rate of progress. Buildings 

 and equipment have more than kept pace, their value 

 having increased from 108Z. to 279/. per student, 

 and this is due largely to the enormous development 

 of laboratories which has taken place in all branches 

 of science. Recent visitors to the United States are 

 unanimous in admiring the wealth of material equip- 

 ment for science teaching and research, and some even 

 describe it as excessive. This development has been 

 made possible by a belief, prevalent among all classes 

 of the community, in the practical value of such work 

 and, especially for the private universities, by the 

 spirit of intense loyalty to the Alma Mater on the 

 part of college graduates. The Harvard rule, that at 

 the twenty-fifth anniversary of graduation each class 

 gives the university a sum of 100,000 dollars, affords 

 an example of the very practical forms in which this 

 spirit manifests itself. 



When the Graduate School movement began there 

 arose a demand for facilities for scientific research, and, 

 as this could not at the time be met in America, 

 students resorted to Europe, and found that of Euro- 

 pean countries, Germany best suited their requirements. 



