250 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LIII. No. 1368 



disease, WTetcliediiess, poverty and despair. 

 This, ladies and gentlemen, is truly the high- 

 est mission of the medical man. 



There remain many problems which in our 

 day are yet unsolved and in each decade new 

 questions will arise. 



Among some of the more pressing problems 

 which face the medical profession of to-day is 

 the discovery of the cause of cancer; a more 

 perfect control of tuberculosis, leading to its 

 ultimate eradication; the ultimate elimina- 

 tion of venereal diseases through compulsory 

 registration, and a wider dissemination of the 

 knowledge of these diseases among the laity, 

 a more accurate knowledge of the etiology, 

 pathology and care of epilepsy, the sufferers 

 from which are the most pathetic and depend- 

 ent members of society; the relief of and the 

 ultimate prevention of nutritional diseases 

 through a more perfect knowledge of dietetics 

 and hygiene on the part of physicians and the 

 public; a crusade against the ever-increasing 

 number of those, especially the young, who 

 are afflicted with defective eyesight, due 

 chiefly to improper lighting of homes and 

 school rooms; and too frequent attendance at 

 motion picture entertainments. 



In closing I can not do better than to leave 

 with you the thoughts embodied in an address 

 by that great medical teacher. Dr. Keen, who 

 says: 



In. all hiiTnility, but with earnestness, medical 

 men tender you their Isjbor and practise, in the 

 hospitals, on teacher's platform, and in the labor- 

 atory. What they expect and look forward to is 

 appreciation, not of the individual, but of the ag- 

 gregate work, and cooperation on the part of the 

 public, for the immediate results of our work are 

 at the same time humane and practical. The re- 

 duction in your death rate of one in a thousand 

 means, beyond the saving of one life, a lowering of 

 more than thirty in the total number of cases of 

 sickness, and therewith prevention of much anxiety 

 wretchedness, and financial loss or ruin in as many 

 families. Eesults like these are liable to be ac- 

 cepted as natural. It should not be forgotten, 

 however, that they are obtained only by the work 

 of medical men who labor for the good they can do, 

 often as hermits, unknown, unappreciated, always 



bent upon the diminution of the number of prob- 

 lems which hitherto were deemed hopeless. 



"William Gerry Morgan 



Washington, D. C. 



THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF SCIENCE 

 TEACHING 



The article on " The Scientific Teaching of 

 Science" in the issue of October 15, 1920, is 

 both suggestive and disappointing. It is sug- 

 gestive because it is the record of an experi- 

 ment in the methodology of science teaching; 

 it is disappointing because the title leads one 

 to hope that some one has at last accumulated 

 the necessary fact basis for the scientific teadh- 

 ing of science, yet the article presents no such 

 facts. 



The author says that " a student will much 

 more rapidly develop the right mental attitude 

 by discovering facts for himself, even though 

 they were known before, than by memorizing 

 a multitude of facts discovered by other peo- 

 ple." If this statement were challenged it 

 would be quite impossible in the present state 

 of our knowledge for the author to substan- 

 tiate his point of view with facts. Probably 

 the statement is true but the business of sci- 

 ence is to provide a fact basis for our knowl- 

 edge and establish principles indisputably. 

 Furthermore it must not be supposed that 

 these two alternatives exhaust the methods of 

 procedure. It is conceivable that a student 

 might develop the right mental attitude more 

 quickly by imitation, following through the 

 steps of discovery taken by some original in- 

 vestigator than by blundering around in a 

 problem of his own. Whether he will or not 

 must be determined by careful experiment, 

 record of results, and this not with a single 

 student, but with many. 



There can 'be no question but that it is a 

 very important thing both in the university 

 and in the earlier schools to develop in the 

 student the power of creative thought. The 

 author of the article records an experiment in 

 progress for three years in the scientific de- 

 partment of a university in which the cus- 

 tomary laboratory-lecture-quiz method was re- 



V 



