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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLVII. No. 1211 



recorded; but for the loss of those coming 

 years that would have given us his greatest 

 achievements, those achievements for which 

 his whole life has been the preparation, no 

 philosophy can console us. About a month 

 before his death he put the question to me : 

 "What would you say had been the effect 

 of the Carnegie Institute of Embryology 

 upon this laboratory ? " to which I replied : 

 "It has lifted the research of the place 

 from a somewhat amateurish to a more pro- 

 fessional state." Never shall I forget the 

 pleasure in his face as he replied: "It is 

 exactly what I wished to do." Such was 

 his aim, such the ideal from which he had 

 never swerved from the very beginning of 

 his career. 



No account of Dr. Mall's scientific work 

 is complete without a mention of his con- 

 tribution in the training of others. Of 

 teaching he had the highest ideal. He 

 once said: "What higher title could there 

 be than that of a great teacher ? ' ' That he 

 himself was one of the world's great teach- 

 ers will toe realized when his influence in 

 the development of medical education in 

 this country is adequately analyzed. To 

 the general problems of education he gave 

 deep thought and great originality. His 

 own teaching was characterized by two 

 broad principles, which were followed in 

 his laboratory; first, that each student 

 might approach his work in the spirit of a 

 discoverer. Second, that since in each class 

 there may be those who are destined to be- 

 come the intellectual leaders of the next 

 generation, liberty in education is essential 

 in order that the strong personality might 

 develop. In regard to the meaning of lib- 

 erty in education, I shall venture to be 

 specific in two points : He held that in the 

 planning of courses in the laboratory, the 

 directions for work should not be so minute 

 and specific as to eliminate a student's 

 initiative ; and that his time should not be 



so completely filled with prescribed work 

 that he could not follow his own bent in 

 some line. 



Dr. Mall's methods of training others 

 were unique — so bound up with his own 

 rare personality that none could copy, and 

 few describe them. He had a gift, perhaps 

 a genius for stimulating thought. Rarely 

 indeed by question, the quiz he never used ; 

 it was more in the nature of an occasional 

 suggestion, the acuteness of which im- 

 pressed one more and more profoundly as 

 one pondered over it. Perhaps his most 

 fundamental quality was his rare generos- 

 ity. I recall distinctly an instance in which 

 a student had worked carefully and accu- 

 rately with him without, however, under- 

 standing the meaning or the value of his 

 observations. The student became discour- 

 aged and had decided to give up the work 

 when Dr. Mall asked for his notes, and later 

 published a very interesting paper under 

 the student's name. This incident is the 

 more interesting in connection with one of 

 Dr. Mall 's letters, written in the early days 

 of the medical school when he was home- 

 sick for the laboratory of Leipzig. He told 

 therein that before leaving Leipzig he had 

 given some incomplete studies to Ludwig, 

 evidently expecting him to use them in his 

 own work, but that Ludwig had added ex- 

 periments and published all under Dr. 

 Mall's name. He then concluded, "Can 

 you blame any one for wanting to return to 

 one who would do things like that ? ' ' Lud- 

 wig, he wrote, was entirelj"- without selfish- 

 ness, and that when he tried to thank him 

 for all he had done, he replied, "Pass it 

 on. ' ' This indeed became the great watch- 

 word of Dr. Mall's life. Most freely did he 

 give his ideas and his energies to his stu- 

 dents. You will find no joint research with 

 his students, for all that he gave them he 

 meant to be theirs. He demanded in re- 

 turn the development of high standards of 



