478 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LI. No. 1324 



return for their money. It is the special ad- 

 vantage of the universities that in them re- 

 search can in a sense be regarded as a utiliza- 

 tion of by-products — not infrequently in mod- 

 ern industry a very important source of real 

 profits. The member of a university faculty 

 can give a return for his salary in the form of 

 teaching — the relatively prosaic, but impor- 

 tant work of passing on to the new generation 

 the achieved results of the science, literature 

 and arts of the past with all which that im- 

 plies of stimulus and moral development. This 

 is his modicum of contribution, but beyond 

 this, the spirit of the university, the environ- 

 meht of young students, the seminar, the sci- 

 entific conferences, the intercourse with col- 

 leagues in related but diversified fields — all 

 these are stimulants to research of the highest 

 efficiency, and constitute at once that free and 

 untrammeled environment which incites to 

 effort in purely ideal lines where no considera- 

 tion save the intrinsic interest of the work in 

 itself, and the desirability of the solution to 

 be attained need intrude. The universities 

 because of their functions in teaching, are the 

 natural homes for research on problems whose 

 appieal is to the desire of the human mind to 

 understand and control its environment. 



I need hardly stop to add that all universi- 

 ties as yet do not furnish in the highest degree 

 possible this sort of environment. It is enough 

 for us that there is no intrinsic reason why 

 they should not all become such centers of 

 stimulation and motive power in research. 

 And for the warning of those who are too 

 much given to reforming that which is already 

 reasonably good, be it said that the tyranny of 

 majorities and of professorial trade unions is 

 quite as likely to meet with passive resistance 

 and the undermining effects of indifference and 

 superior interest in the real work of teaching 

 and research, as the attempts at financial, so- 

 cial, intellectual and executive overlordship 

 which have in the past been regarded as the 

 most insidious foes of our much-prized and 

 too frequently little understood academic free- 

 dom. 



The further fundamental consideration 

 which confronts us is that after all research is 



hard work and that the most important stim- 

 ulus thereto is the force of example. After 

 the exhibition of the past four years it is 

 hardly necessary to emphasize that man is still 

 very much of an animal. One of the oldest if 

 not the primitive mental trait is imitation. 

 We shall stimulate research in direct propor- 

 tion as we plunge into it ourselves each on the 

 problems that look large and appeal to him 

 esi>ecially. With the socializing tendencies of 

 the present day and the vast emphasis which 

 is being laid on organization it may sound like 

 ■serious heresy but I am willing to stand for 

 the proposition that in peace times at least no 

 one is justified in assuming executive work or 

 work in the planning and direction of the re- 

 eearch of others to the exclusion of his own 

 research work. On those minded to do so I 

 would urge first at least the need of research 

 that the justification of their viewpoint be 

 made more clear than it is at present. With 

 all our present-day divergence of views we can 

 perhaps agree that the advance of knowledge 

 in the future depends most on the possibility 

 of winning the brightest minds of the rising 

 generation for research and for accomplishing 

 this it seems to me the most important factor 

 is that we convince our students by our own 

 examples that research is really an absorbing 

 and satisfying occupation that it is interesting 

 in itself even independently of the immediately 

 obvious value of the results obtained. Not by 

 preaching research or organizing research or 

 talking about the stimulation of research, but 

 by showing a deep, insatiable curiosity about 

 the things of nature and of life, we shall ad- 

 vance and win others to engage in the pursuit 

 and practise of knowledge E. A. Harper 

 Columbia University 



JAMES M. MACOUN 



James M. Macoun, chief of the Biological 

 Division of the Geological Survey, Canada, 

 died January 8, 1920, aged 58. He was well 

 known as one of the best informed systematic 

 botanists, not only throughout Canada but 

 also in other countries, and was an expert on 

 the fur-seal industry. 



