April 23, 1920] 



SCIENCE 



415 



to find a post in some phTsiological laboratory in 

 the U. 9. I do not know English well enough to 

 give lectures just at present but in one to one and 

 one half years I would be able to do so. But now 

 I think I could be of use in some research institu- 

 tion. • 



I have a similar request to make to you on be- 

 half of my friend Privat Docent A. A. Kronforsky, 

 lecturer on pathology and bacteriology at the Uni- 

 versity of Xiefif, whom I can recommend most 

 warmly. He would emigrate to America for the 

 purpose of continuing his scientific work. 



Please be so kind to direct your reply (if it is 

 possible cable me) to British Consulat General in 

 Odessa for Professor B. P. Babkin, Physiological 

 Laboratory, University of Odessa. 



With kind regards, 



Yours sincerely, 

 B. Babkin 



QUOTATIONS 



RESEARCH AND THE UNIVERSITIES 



"Imitation research" is the latest object 

 of attack by the Carnegie Foundation for the 

 Advancement of Teaching. " Much," declares 

 the report "of that which has gone on in 

 American universities under the name of re- 

 search is in truth only an imitation." This is 

 a strong statement. Most persons familiar 

 with the facts, it is safe to say, will feel that 

 it should be modified by striking out " much " 

 and substituting " soma" A favorite game 

 with critics of vmiversity work has long been 

 the quotation of subjects of doctoral theses. 

 Even those who should know better are tmaWe 

 to resist the temptation of provoking a laugh 

 at the exi)enBe of the scholar who labored to 

 give to the world the boon of several hundred 

 pages on " The Middle English Ideal of Per- 

 sonal Beauty," or " A Study of the Ck>gmonina 

 of Soldiers in the Roman Legion," or " Plane 

 Nets with Equal Invariants." The Carnegie 

 report does not descend to this level, but it 

 gives aid and comfort to such criticism by 

 coupling its extreme statement about " imita- 

 tion research" with advice to the tmiversities 

 " to take stock of themselves before appealing 

 to the public for fimds on an enormous scale." 



That stock taking has already been done, 

 and by an agency as pitiless as this world 

 knows. The direction of our war effort was 



committed in large measure to the college- 

 trained man. He was, in many important 

 positions, a person cursed with a Ph.D., the 

 stigma that told of seminars and laboratories 

 and — ^well, research. He came from every- 

 where, from the fresh-water institution of 

 limited facilities as well as from the univer- 

 sity of unrivalled resources. That he " made 

 good" from the beginning is one of the com- 

 monplaces of the history of our war. He took 

 hold of a situation as imacademic as the most 

 skeptical of his critics could have imagined, 

 and proceeded as if the war were nothing 

 more baffling than a particularly unruly set 

 of sophomores. 



There was not a little running around in 

 circles at Washington during the months fol- 

 lowing April, 191Y, but the specialist, product 

 of the American research methods, did not in- 

 dulge in it. 



The colleges are far from perfect. Many 

 worthless law, schools are doing a large busi- 

 ness, as Dr. Pritchett's report observes, and it 

 it to be hoped that the Foimdation may be as 

 successful in wiping them off the map as it 

 has been with the same brand of medical 

 school. But the public has never appreciated 

 research work at its true value, and the rather 

 sensational language of the report is likely 

 to do more harm than good. We need more 

 research work and not less — more of the kind 

 actually prevailing in the mass of our uni- 

 versities. — The New Yorh Evening Post. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 



Inbreeding and Outbreeding, Their Genetic 

 and Sociological Significance. By Edwakd 

 M. East and Donald F. Jones. Philadel- 

 phia and London, J. B. Lippincott Co., 

 1919. Pp. 285. 46 illustrations. 

 No better example than this book affords is 

 likely to be foimd of the successful carrying 

 out of the purpose of the series of " Mono- 

 graphs on Experimental Biology," which is 

 stated by the general editors in these words: 

 "Biology which not long ago was purely de- 

 scriptive and speculative, has begun to adopt 

 the methods Of the exact sciences, recognizing 



