92 sECTioifAL Addresses. 



of tlie devotee of any other science ! The researcher is not a huckstel' 

 and will not make this claim on his own behalf, but the occupant of 

 this Chair may be allowed to do so for him. 



So far I have devoted my attention primarily, in this survey of the 

 position of Zoology, to the usefulness of the subject. Let us now note 

 where we stand in respect to other subjects and in meeting the real need 

 for wide zoological study. 



All sciences are now being reviewed, and zoology has to meet month 

 by month the increasingly powerful claim of physics and chemistry for 

 public support. Both of these sciences are conspicuously applicable 

 to industry, and this, perhaps, is their best claim. The consideration 

 of life as a science would itself be in danger were it not for the economic 

 applications of physiology to medicine. This is the danger from 

 without, but there is anotlier irom within, and this lies in the splitting 

 np of the subject into a series of small sections devoted to special 

 economic ends. They are a real danger in that they are forming 

 enclosures within a science, while research is more and more breaking 

 down the walls between sciences. Zoology in many Universities 

 scarcely exists, for what is assimilated by agriculturists and medical 

 men are catalogued lists of pests, while medical students merely acquire 

 the technique of observing dead forms of animals other than lauman — 

 not the intention of the teachers, it is true, but a melancholy fact all 

 the same. The student, I say again, is merely acquiring in ' Zoology ' 

 a travesty of a noble subject, but to this point I return later. 



Let me now give a few facts which have their sweet and bitter for 

 us who make Zoology our life work. During the war we wanted men 

 who had passed the Honours Schools in Zoology — and hence, were pre- 

 sumably capable of doing the work — to train for the diagnosis of proto- 

 zoal disease. We asked for all names from 1905 to 1914 inclusive, and tbe 

 average vs'orked out at under fourteen per year from all English 

 Universities : an average of one student per University per year. In 

 the year 1913-14: every student who had done his Honours Course in 

 Zoology in 1913 could, if lie had taken entomology as his subject, have 

 been absorbed into the economic applications of that subject. Trained 

 men were wanted to undertake scientific fishery investigations and they 

 could not be found. Posts were advertised in Animal Breeding, in 

 Helminthology, and in Protozoology, three other economic sides of 

 the subject. The Natural History Museum wanted systematists and 

 there were many advertisements for teachers. How many of these 

 posts were filled I don't know, but it is clear that not more than one- 

 half — or even one-third — can have been filled efficiently. Can any 

 zoologist say that all is well with his subject in the face of these 

 deficiencies ? 



The demands for men in the economic sides of zoology are con- 

 tinually growmg, and it is the business of Universities to try and meet 

 these demands. There are Departments of Government at home and 

 in our Colonies, which, in the interests of the people they govern, wish 

 to put into operation protective measm-es but cannot do so because 

 there are not the men with the requisite knowledge and common sense 

 required for Inspectorates. There are others that wish for research 



