December 17, 1920] 



SCIENCE 



585 



■ The Maine Station in its 35 years of exist- 

 ence has through its discoveries added many 

 millions to the wealth of the state. It is the 

 only research agency the state has for dis- 

 covering the laws underlying successful agri- 

 culture. Research is slow painstaking work. 

 The research worker must be kept from har- 

 rowing concern. For it is only by concentra- 

 tion on his project that success can be had. 

 This action of the trustees has fundamentally 

 disturbed the confidence of the research man. 

 He argues if the director after a quarter of 

 century of faithful work is dismissed without 

 adequate reason, where does he stand, what 

 hope has he of being able to complete a study 

 that must extend over long periods of tim.e? 

 At no time in the history of the station does 

 it so need the steadying hands of friends of 

 agriculture. The last request of the removed 

 director is to the friends of agriculture, and 

 he is happy and proud to know they are for 

 the most part his personal friends as well, to 

 come to the support of the station. It has 

 been receiving $5,000 a year from the state for 

 its support. To tide it over until increased 

 federal appropriations which are being asked 

 for in a nation-wide movement are available, 

 this amount must be increased to $25,000 a 

 year. Otherwise it will not be possible for 

 any one to hold the present very efficient or- 

 ganization together. Help will come from the 

 outside eventually but for this help to be effi- 

 cient the agriculture of the state must see to 

 it that the legislature makes provision for its 

 immediate support. Chas. D. Woods 



QUOTATIONS 



SCIENCE AND THE NATION 



Most of us receive daily appeals for war 

 memorials of various kinds. Would not the 

 best, and, in the end, the cheapest, war me- 

 morial be a growing and efficient body of 

 brain-workers, able and willing to solve the 

 problems which the war has left in its train, 

 and to help the nation in its hour of need? 

 For leaders both in peace and war we must 

 find and train men who will be competent to 



use the national resources in the most effective 

 manner. Scientific workers are naturally 

 marked out by their progressive instincts and 

 severe ttraining to serve not merely in an ad- 

 visory capacity in the councils of the nation, " 

 but also as executive officers. Moseley and 

 others of his type will not have died in vain 

 if the Cenotaph reminds us that men of sci- 

 ence must take an active part in the affairs of 

 state, in guiding the development and thought 

 of the nation, and in seeing that the bitter 

 lessons learnt during the last six years are not 

 forgotten. 



This end will not be attained by service on 

 committees, whether for chemical warfare or 

 any other subject. If the War Office seeks to 

 be scientific it should establish within itself, 

 as the Admiralty has done, a research depart- 

 ment with distinguished men of science as 

 permanent members of the staff to suggest and 

 supervise work on methods of modern war- 

 fare. It would be the business of such officers 

 to make use of science for purposes of national 

 security, and workers in university or other 

 laboratories could please themsfelves whether 

 they cooperated or not in particular researches 

 or experiments. We can understand the ob- 

 jections offered by Professor Soddy and others 

 against men of science associating themselves 

 as a body with problems of this type, but until 

 human nature reaches a higher ethical plane 

 than it occupies at present we must have a 

 War Office, and an essential part of it should 

 be an able scientific staff, the members of 

 which would be responsible for making us 

 strong enough to meet any crises which the 

 future mig'ht bring. No committee of sixty or 

 more associate members can do this, and none 

 would be necessary if the War Office ranked a 

 scientific service with the General Staff, as it 

 should do, instead of inviting scientific work- 

 ers to devote their time and knowledge to 

 " offensive and defensive aspects of chemical 

 .warfare " for little more than out-of-pocket 

 expenses. 



We claim for science a much more respon- 

 sible position, and a far higher appreciation of 

 its worth, than our war leaders offer to it even 

 now; and we do so because we remember that 



