OCTOBEK 1, 1920] 



SCIENCE 



307 



ditions as do those of medicine or engineering 

 for example. And the men who are to solve 

 them must have just as broad and thorough 

 a fundamental training as the researcher in 

 medicine or engineering. Moreover, apart 

 from his research, the technical agriculturist 

 has to face just as many situations requiring 

 broad education and culture as have any other 

 professional men. 



ITow the medical colleges require the equiva- 

 lent of two years of arts work with specified 

 large credits in the sciences, before admission 

 is granted to the purely medical studies. . Some 

 indeed require full arts graduation and all 

 medical authorities advise graduation in arts 

 even where they do not require it. All this is 

 required of those who are to become only gen- 

 eral medical practitioners. Much more is nec- 

 essary for the research man. 



Similar conditions are found in regard to 

 the training for other professions. In engi- 

 neering, law, divinity, a broad fundamental 

 training is considered necessary and is gen- 

 erally required. At the recent Canadian uni- 

 versities conference held at Quebec a resolu- 

 tion was unanimously adopted calling for large 

 increases in English, history, economics and 

 particularly fundamental science in the train- 

 ing of engineers. The ideal of all education- 

 ists in these professions is to secure complete 

 arts graduation before admission to profes- 

 sional studies, and failing that a large and 

 specified amount of arts work. 



In my opinion the professional agriculturist 

 should have just as thorough a pre-professional 

 training. This is true not only for the re- 

 searcher in agricultural problems but also for 

 agricultural teachers in schools or colleges, 

 district representatives, inspectors, laboratory 

 men and various administrators. 



In those institutions which include both 

 arts and agricultural colleges, it should be easy 

 to arrange for such training. The pre-agri- 

 cultural students should be taught in the same 

 classes as the pre-medical students, or pre- 

 engineering students, or straight arts students. 

 In other places the students may not be given 

 the formal arts classes but he should get the 

 equivalent of them in a thorough broad train- 



ing during the first two years. In all cases, 

 if he is to benefit by his work, complete matric- 

 ulation should be demanded before the student 

 is permitted to enter. It is essential pedagog- 

 ically that the basic subjects be taught before 

 the student takes up the professional ones. 

 They should certainly not be tacked on after 

 the student has taken his professional work. 

 This will involve an almost complete separa- 

 tion of the courses for technical agriculturists 

 from those for the men who are to return to 

 the farms. In short our ideal should be to 

 bring our professional agricultural training 

 abreast of our training for other professions 

 by requiring as pre-agricultural study a large 

 amount of, and as soon as possible complete, 

 arts work. Only in this way can we secure a 

 supply of properly trained research men as 

 well as of other technical agriculturists. 



The educational aspect of the relationship 

 also involves the question of graduate work 

 which is a very passing one in Canada. But 

 as that is to be dealt with by another speaker, 

 I shall refrain from discussing it. 



I said at the outset that I would not attempt 

 a comprehensive treatment of the subject — in 

 spite of the time I have taken. I have tried 

 to emphasize four respects in which, in my 

 opinion, the relation of scientific research to 

 agriculture is peculiarly important in Canada 

 at the present time. They may be designated 

 (1) Foundation, (2) Cooperation, (3) Re- 

 muneration and (4) Education. 



W. P. Thompson 



TJniversitt op Saskatchewan 



LIMITATIONS OF EXPERIMENT IN 



EXPLAINING NATURAL HABIT. 



AS ILLUSTRATED BY THE 



DIURNAL MIGRATIONi 



The general facts about the diurnal distri- 

 bution of plankton organisms are these: at 

 night there is greater abundance of a given 

 species at higher levels and less abundance at 



1 A paper read at the meeting of the Western 

 Society of Naturalists, Pasadena, California, June 

 20, 1919. 



