54 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. L. No. 1281 



|bis qualifications or his duties. It should be 

 clear, however, that neither planning of the 

 project, nor partitioning of the field nor as- 

 signment of work is to be a function of the 

 leader or of any group within or without 

 the committee. Each individual must be free 

 to undertake that which his inclination and 

 his facilities dictate. 'Not shall any one re- 

 serve to himself alone any phase of the prob- 

 Jem whatsoever. Each must feel free to dupli- 

 pate, to test or to try the work of the other. 

 The solution of the problem is the thing and 

 personal aggrandizement at the expense of 

 one's colleagues must give place to personal 

 service and its more lasting rewards, for I am 

 convinced that there will be more of glory and 

 fenovsTi for each participant in a cooperative 

 ^accomplishment, complete and well rounded, 

 jthan in the best fragment which any of them 

 alone might pass down to posterity. 

 , You will next demand to know how effective 

 cooperation and coordination within the com- 

 mittee is to be assured without personal con- 

 tact and exchange of view. I reply, it is not. 

 This brings us to a consideration of the 

 project conference. A conference of at least 

 a considerable majority of those proposing to 

 associate themselves together in the work will 

 be requisite for the very organization thereof; 

 ^nd the selection of a leader will be by no 

 jneans the only business. At the initial con- 

 ference there must he the freest and fullest ex- 

 change of data already in the hands of each 

 member, of all the ideas, yea, of all the 

 " hunches " which each may have upon the 

 subject. Every man's cards, all of them, must 

 be upon the table, faces up. They must in. 

 the very beginning pool, in the fullest sense 

 of that word, their combined resources and 

 then there must be an exhaustive examination 

 and discussion of every item presented, with 

 ;finally a summarized inventory of their stock 

 in hand. With this before them, plans for fu- 

 ture work will be agreed upon and each will 

 return to his post to carry forward to the best 

 pi his ability that portion of the work which 

 he himself has chosen to do, feeling that he has 

 a vital part in a vital problem worthy of his 

 best endeavors. Nor will he be tempted to dis- 



sipate his time and enei^y on other phases of 

 the problem which he feels are necessary com- 

 pliments to that ujwn which he desires tO' con- 

 centrate his efforts. He will know that another 

 seeks their solution and will bring them even- 

 tually for fitting together with the parts which 

 Jie himself has shaped. 



Succeeding conferences on the project must 

 ,be arranged. They should at least be annual 

 for while much may be accomplished by cor- 

 respondence it is only in the heat of personal 

 ^discussion that the various parts can be ef- 

 fectively welded into a coordinate whole. 



There is much virtue in conferences of real 

 cooperators. They are not the " talk-fests" 

 and sparring matches of competing individual- 

 ists. They are the business meetings of an 

 open corporation. They are not for the read- 

 ing of preliminary papers, they ai;e for the ma- 

 king of comprehensive contributions. They 

 require days not hours. Two solid days in- 

 cluding the intervening evening were required 

 to organize the project work on potato mosaic, 

 leaf roll jnd seed certification in the Buffalo 

 conference of potato disease pathologists last 

 August; and no time was wasted. These con- 

 ferences must be arranged for and the cooper- 

 ators must be gotten to them. The necessary 

 traveling funds must be found. 



And now I hear some skeptic mutter to his 

 neighbor, " But how about publication." The 

 answer is simple. A group of men who will 

 cooperate in the solution of a scientific prob- 

 lem will also cooperate in the publication of 

 their work. That too is their problem, and 

 different groups will solve it differently. 



It is apparent that some organization or 

 association of the units, the project com- 

 mittees, is not only desirable but perhaps im- 

 perative. They need the stimulus that comes 

 through association; each needs to coordinate 

 its own problem with the related ones. This 

 has been accomplished to some extent by the 

 phytopathologists in the formation of general 

 project committees consisting of the leaders 

 of the committees on closely related projects, 

 as for example the general potato disease pro- 

 ject committee, of which Dr. W. A. Orton is 

 now leader. 



