May 9, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



707 



finance committee of the city of Philadelpliia, 

 and Morris L. Cook, director of the public 

 works of Philadelphia. 



Tpie trustees of Dartmouth College have 

 voted, after the year 1914, to suspend for the 

 present instruction in the last two or clinical 

 years of the Medical School and to concen- 

 trate the resources of the school upon the first 

 two years in medicine. Students thus trained 

 will be well qualified to enter the third year 

 of the courses offered by the best city medical 

 schools and may there complete their clinical 

 preparation for the degree of doctor of medi- 

 cine. The reason given by the trustees for 

 this action is that because of its location the 

 school has found difficulty in meeting satis- 

 factorily the steadily advancing requirements 

 set by the medical profession for a larger 

 supply and variety of clinical material for 

 purposes of instruction. By the action of the 

 trustees also provision is made to extend the 

 work in business organization and manage- 

 ment and in commerce. Principles of busi- 

 ness management, heretofore a second-year 

 course, will be given the first year. Professor 

 Person and Henry Woods Shelton, appointed 

 assistant professor, will offer new advanced 

 courses in the application of principles of 

 management in manufacturing and merchan- 

 dizing, including selling, advertising and other 

 specialized branches. 



Professor Ernest C. Moore, head of the 

 department of education at Yale University, 

 has received an offer to become professor of 

 education at Harvard University. 



Dr. Joel H. Hildebrand, of the University 

 of Pennsylvania, has been appointed assistant 

 professor of chemistry in the University of 

 California. 



Dr. Ernst Heddjger, professor of patholog- 

 ical anatomy at Basle, has accepted a call to 

 Konigsberg in succession to Professor F. 

 Henke. 



Mr. a. E. HJNKS, E.E.S., chief assistant at 

 the Cambridge University Observatory, has 

 been appointed Gresham professor of astron- 

 omy, London, in succession to the late Mr. S. 

 A. Saunder. 



At a meeting of the electors to the Plumian 

 professorship of astronomy in the University 

 of Cambridge, held on April 19, Mr. A. S. 

 Edding-ton, chief assistant at the Eoyal Ob- 

 servatory, Greenwich, was elected to the pro- 

 fessorship, in succession to the late Sir George 

 Darwin. 



DISCUSSION AND COEMESPONDENCE 



THE NEED FOR ENDOWED AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH* 



To THE Editor of Science: There exists a 

 widespread confusion of thought in regard to 

 what is needed for the advancement of the 

 science of agriculture in distinction from 

 what is needed for the promotion of the prac- 

 tise of scientific farming. Actually these two 

 things are entirely distinct, and what is of 

 great aid, or even essential to one, is usually 

 of relatively little value to the other, and in- 

 deed may indirectly become a hindrance to it. 

 To advance the science of agriculture means 

 to make new and fundamental discoveries in 

 regard to the natural laws on which crop pro- 

 duction and animal production depend. To 

 promote such advance plainly demands the 

 conducting of scientific research of the high- 

 est type in the field of agriculture and the 

 pure sciences — physics, chemistry and biology 

 — which are fundamental to it. On the other 

 hand, to advance or promote the practise of 

 scientific farming means (a) to put into the 

 hands of the practical farmer the most com- 

 plete and authentic information which exists 



' This communication was called forth by the dis- 

 cussion which has been going on in the newspapers 

 regarding the proposed plan of Mr. Vincent Astor 

 to utilize his estate for the promotion of agricul- 

 tural science. It was origmally published in the 

 New York Times for February 21, 1913. The 

 editor of that paper, however, saw fit to omit 

 considerable portions of the communication as 

 submitted to him, including the discussion of what 

 I believe to be the most essential point indicating 

 the need for endowed, as supplementary to tax- 

 supported, agricultural research. The result was 

 what I can only regard as an unfair and inadequate 

 presentation of my views on the subject. Since 

 the matter is unquestionably one of real signifi- 

 cance to the cause of American science, I venture 

 to offer here a complete statement of my position. 



