Mat 7, 1920] 



SCIENCE 



455 



of adrainistering a large joint tuidertaking. 

 We have no doubt that this can be overcome, 

 with patience and good will, even with the 

 present organization of onr chief universities. 

 But, on the other hand, these difficulties are 

 greatly minimized under a junior college 

 organization. Presmnably in most institu- 

 tions the first two years work would be placed 

 directly under the control of a dean or other 

 similar administrative officer with little or no 

 departmental bias. He would be empowered 

 and obligated to organize such general courses 

 — General Biology and others — without inter- 

 ference from departments or technical schools, 

 though he would doubtless wisely seek such 

 advice as he needed. 



Under a junior college organization, general 

 biology is but one of the urgent needs. A 

 presentation of the general concepts of physics 

 and chemistry is certainly just as much 

 needed and doubtless equally feasible. Cer- 

 tainly the educated man should know some- 

 thing of the earth on which he lives and the 

 planetary system to which it belongs — inter- 

 esting subject matter for a general course. 

 It is possibly ventming afield for biologists to 

 suggest that a general course could also be 

 devised that would inform the student con- 

 cerning the human environment in which he 

 lives. What a fascinating com-se could be 

 made by a serious attempt to set before the 

 student the role of the state, the church, labor, 

 capital, eugenics, and euthenics! 



In conclusion the writers, a botanist and a 

 physiologist, respectively, would beg to record 

 their conviction not only that a course in 

 general biology, and other similar courses, can 

 be organized and that they are highly desir- 

 able but also that the advance of the junior 

 college will shortly force us to attempt it 

 whether we like it or not. 



Leonas L. Burlingame, 

 Ernest G. Martin 



Stanpoed UNrvEESiry 



FRANCIS C. PHILLIPS 



Dr. Francis Clifford Phillips died at his 

 residence, 144 Ridge Avenue, Ben Avon, Pa., 

 on Monday, February 16, of influenza-pneu- 



monia, i)assing away in the same peaceful 

 manner which characterized his life. 



He was born in Philadelphia, April 2, 1850, 

 the son of William S. and Frederieka Inger- 

 soll Phillips. He received his early education 

 at home from an unusually capable and de- 

 voted mother. In 1864 Dr. Phillips studied 

 at the Academy of the Protestant Episcopal 

 Church in Philadelphia and in 1866 entered 

 the University of Pennsylvania, where he ob- 

 tained his A.B. From 1871-1873 he studied 

 under Eegimus Fresenius at Wiesbaden, Ger- 

 many. During the latter year he was private 

 assistant to Professor Fresenius. He then 

 spent a year at the Polytechnic School at 

 Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle). Here he was as- 

 sociated with Professor Landolt. Professor 

 Phillips was unable to complete his studies 

 abroad because of the poor health of his 

 father. He returned to America and during 

 the following year became instructor in chem- 

 istry at Delaware College. In 1875 he was 

 appointed to the teaching staii of the Univer- 

 sity of Pittsburgh, then the Western Univer- 

 sity of Pennsyvania, where he taught for forty 

 years, retiring as head of the Department of 

 Chemistry in 1915. For many years he taught 

 chemistry, geology and mineralogy. Even in 

 the writer's student days (1898-1902) Pro- 

 fessor Phillips still taught all branches of 

 chemistry and mineralogy. In 1878-1879 he 

 also lectured to the students in the Pittsburgh 

 College of Pharmacy, where he succeeded the 

 late Professor John W. Langley, a brother of 

 the late Samuel P. Langley, then at the Alle- 

 gheny Observatory and afterwards secretary 

 of the Smithsonian Institution. In 1879 he 

 received the degree of A.M. from the Uni- 

 versity of Pennsylvania, and in 1893 the Ph.D. 



He was married in 1881 to Sarah Ormsby 

 Phillips daughter of Ormsby Phillips, a 

 former mayor of Allegheny. 



In 1915 Dr. Phillips retired from active 

 service in the University of Pittsburgh tmder 

 the pension system of the Carnegie Founda- 

 tion. Since that time he had been engaged 

 continuously in research and writing in a 

 laboratory provided by the Mellon Institute. 

 During the recent war he conducted researches 



