546 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVII. No. 954 



What has just been said is not intended 

 in any way to criticise, or belittle the im- 

 portance and value of the "pure-bred" 

 registry system of developing the live-stock 

 industry of the world. I merely wish to 

 point out that when he adopted the system, 

 the animal breeder took upon himself along 

 with the advantages certain very real re- 

 strictions to the freedom of his breeding 

 operations, which the plant breeder has 

 escaped. The animal-breeding industry of 

 the world has developed as a system of 

 pedigreed aristocracy. The plant-breeding 

 industry is developing as a democracy. 

 The "social position" of a horse or a cow 

 is primarily determined on the basis of 

 whether it had a grandfather or not. A 

 variety of oats takes its place in the world 

 by virtue of its own inherent qualities, with 

 no questions asked about forebears or the 

 orthodoxy of their marital relations. Both 

 aristocracies and democracies have their 

 advantages and their disadvantages as 

 social systems. These merits and defects 

 are just as real and effective in their opera- 

 tion whether the ultimate vital unit of the 

 system be a man, a cow or an oat plant. 



Owing to the essentially different condi- 

 tions and methods of work which obtain in 

 plant breeding, this field is able to reap 

 more direct benefits of a practical character 

 from the advances which have been made in 

 the science of genetics, than is animal 

 breeding. In the creation of new races by 

 hybridization the plant breeder can and 

 does take Mendelian principles as a direct 

 and immediate guide. He has made Men- 

 delism a working tool of his craft. 



To conclude : What I have tried to do in 

 this paper is to discuss the relation between 

 the science of genetics and the practical 

 art of breeding as they actually have de- 

 veloped and now exist. Your attention has 

 been directed to the obvious fact that ani- 

 mal breeding has, without the aid of genetic 



science, attained an extremely high level of 

 achievement. Empirical methods can only 

 have been successful when they were funda- 

 mentally in accord with natural laws, and it 

 is therefore not to be considered surprising 

 that the recent discoveries of world-old 

 genetic laws have not radically modified 

 the successful animal breeders' methods. 

 In pointing out that a scientifically trained 

 geneticist is not as yet an absolutely indis- 

 pensable necessity on a successful animal 

 breeding farm I have no thought or desire 

 to belittle the importance of the science of 

 genetics. My zeal and enthusiasm for the 

 advance of knowledge in this field know no 

 bounds. This attitude, however, furnishes 

 no reason that the geneticist should delude 

 himself, or by rash statements hold out 

 false hopes to the breeder, as to the imme- 

 diate practical importance of some of the 

 recent developments in the science of gene- 

 tics. All knowledge is potentially useful, 

 but the fundamental reason for undertak- 

 ing and encouraging research in genetics, 

 or anything else, is not because what one 

 gets may be useful, but because it is 



knowledge. ^ „ 



^ Raymond Peabl 



Maine Agricultukal Experiment Station 



TSE METAMORPHOSIS OF THE CARNEGIE 

 FOUNDATION 



That part — a relatively small part — of the 

 new annual report of the Carnegie Foundation 

 which deals with the affairs of the foundation 

 itself, is significant chiefly as showing that 

 the president of the foundation, at least, has 

 already abandoned most of those principles 

 which at the outset were generally understood 

 to govern the foundation's policy with respect 

 to retiring allowances. It is worth while to 

 recall what some of those principles were. 



1. The primary purpose of the pension sys- 

 tem was to be, not to relieve deserving and 

 necessitous college teachers in their old age, 

 but to better the profession as a whole, " to at- 

 tract into it increasing numbers of strong 



