SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. L. No. 1279 



is to express in mild terms what must be ob- 

 vious to every one familiar with the facts. 



As one consults the early records of the 

 bureau and recalls the later activities and 

 developments, the conclusion is inevitable that 

 our relations with the laboratory zoologists 

 have been not only invaluable but actually 

 indispensable to us. There is some ground 

 for the belief that zoologists have obtained a 

 measure of profit from the cooperation, but 

 there can be no doubt that the balance of 

 benefits is on the government's side. 



The mutual relations that have existed from 

 the beginning have consisted essentially of (1) 

 personal service rendered to the bureau by 

 luiiversity zoologists for particular investiga- 

 tions or special duties and (2) the extension 

 of facilities to zoologists — professors, instruc- 

 tors, students — for conducting investigations 

 in laboratories, on vessels, or in the field. 



The advantages of this arrangement from 

 our standpoint are: (1) That we have been 

 able to obtain the personal aid of men pre- 

 eminently qualified for studying special prob- 

 lems, often at the time when those problems 

 have been most pressing; and (2) that we 

 have been able to secure this cooperation at 

 a cost to the government that must be con- 

 siderd merely nominal, for no funds provided 

 by Congress would have been adequate to 

 command such services had it been necessary 

 to compensate them at their full worth. 



It was at the very outset of our career that 

 we enlisted the services of the university 

 zoologist Verrill for fundamental systematic 

 work on the invertebrate animals of the north- 

 east coast, which work, though now necessarily 

 obsolete, has remained a standard. Verrill 

 was followed by a veritable host of university 

 men engaged for essential systematic work on 

 the fauna of the fresh and salt waters of the 

 country and its outlying possessions, and by 

 a similar host who dealt with almost every 

 other phase of aquatic zoology. I need not 

 extol or discuss their work. I wiU merely 

 recall to you, as some of those university 

 zoologists whose labors in behalf of the bu- 

 reau have been fruitful, Gilbert, Jordan and 



Snyder in systematic ichthyology; Bigelow, 

 Forbes, Hargitt, Holmes, Linton, J. P. Moore, 

 Osburn, Sidney Smith and Wheeler in syste- 

 matic invertebrate zoology; Birge, Bumpus, 

 Dean, Grave, Greene, C. J. Herrick, F. H. 

 Herrick, Kellogg, Kofoid, Lefevre, Mast, 

 Mead, Parker, Pearse, Peck, Eeighard, Ryder, 

 Tower and Ward in anatomy, physiology, em- 

 bryology, ecology and life history. This list 

 is not by any means complete. 



As for the future relations of the bureau 

 with imiversities — and this is the important 

 matter before us — we ask for a continuation 

 of the existing cooperative spirit and, further, 

 we hope that, as far as practicable, the uni- 

 versity zoologists may adapt some of their 

 own researches to subjects of directly useful 

 ap lication and, whenever possible, let crea- 

 tures of obvious economic importance receive 

 more attention in the regular laboratory 

 courses. The universities will not fail to ap- 

 preciate the great need, especially in the im- 

 mediate future, for affording every possible aid 

 to the material as well as the intellectual 

 welfare of the country. The noble response 

 of the universities to the country's call to 

 service in the great crisis through which we 

 have been passing — ^when hundreds of mem- 

 bers of the faculties placed at the disposal of 

 the government their technical and profes- 

 sional skill and knowledge for practical use in 

 every branch of public activity- — ^has made a 

 deep and lasting impress on the nation and 

 has had a particularly happy infiuence for 

 government bureaus engaged in scientific 

 work, and, at the same time, should not fail 

 to produce a sympathetic attitude among uni- 

 versity men toward laboratories established 

 and maintained at public expense for the 

 conduct of scientific work with a practical 

 object or application. There should result a 

 more general recognition of the fact that gov- 

 ernment scientific bureaus whose function is 

 public service should properly concern them- 

 selves chiefly with the applications of science 

 to public welfare, and should devote their 

 energies to pure science only in so far as may 

 be necessary to launch successful enterprises 

 in applied science. 



