MarcH 29, 1912] 
ANNOUNCEMENT has been made of a gift of 
$100,000 by Mr. J. P. Morgan to the Peabody 
College for Teachers. The trustees of the 
George Peabody fund have agreed te give an 
additional $500,000 to the college, provided it 
collects $1,000,000 by September 1, 1913. 
Several fellowships in industrial chemistry 
will be offered by the chemical department of 
the North Dakota Agricultural College for the 
coming year. These fellowships, of the value 
of $500, will be given for research work in 
connection with the paint industry. 
Mr. Runcrman, president of the Board of 
Agriculture and Fisheries, has announced that 
in addition to the block grant of £1,300 a year 
given by the board to University College, 
Reading, in aid of agriculture and horticul- 
ture, and in addition to a further grant of 
£1,000 a year recently offered to the college in 
aid of advisory work among farmers, the 
Board of Agriculture would provide £2,500 a 
year and one half of the capital cost of a 
building with the object of establishing a 
dairying research station at the college, on 
condition that the grant of $2,500 a year was 
supplemented by £1,300 a year provided locally 
for the purpose. 
THE degree of doctor of public health has 
just been established at the University of 
Wisconsin by vote of the regents upon recom- 
mendation of the university faculty. Candi- 
dates for this degree must hold the degree of 
doctor of medicine-from medical schools of 
approved standing and must have spent at 
least two years in the study of sciences related 
to hygiene and public health subsequent to 
the regular medical course. 
Proressor GrEorGE P. Burns, who went to 
the University of Vermont two years ago as 
head of the department of botany, will not 
return to the University of Michigan, from 
which he had leave of absence. 
Tue Kaiser Wilhelm professor at Columbia 
University for the academic year 1912-13, who 
is nominated by the Prussian Ministry of 
Public Instruction, will be Phelix Kriiger, 
Ph.D., professor of psychology at the Univer- 
sity of Halle. 
SCIENCE 
495 
DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE 
THE USE OF THE WORD “ GENOTYPE” 
In a recent issue of Sctencr, Bather' takes 
exception for the third time to the use of the 
word “genotype” by writers on Mendelism 
who apply the term in a sense quite different 
from that in which it was first proposed and 
has since been used consistently and continu- 
ously. It is obvious that Bather is not fa- 
miliar with the situation here in America or 
surely he would be less caustic in his remarks. 
Certain of our biologists have been suffering 
from an attack of what might be called De- 
mentia Mendeliana. Those of us who have 
escaped infection or who have recovered 
from the attack but who are surrounded by 
the sufferers are inclined to refer to their ac- 
tions “less in anger than in sorrow.” 
Doubtless it is hard for a foreigner to 
understand the situation here in America. 
In biology no less than in politics we have 
“progressive” elements. And certain of 
these progressives have taken to themselves a 
name “ geneticists.” Also they have evolved 
a language. In doing this they have appropri- 
ated freely from the older language of mathe- 
matics, but not without exciting the suspicions 
of mathematicians. They have likewise ap- 
propriated certain terms from _ biological 
taxonomy, and since few if any of the lead- 
ing “geneticists” are more familiar with 
taxonomy than with mathematics it is not 
strange that some of the borrowed terms have 
been misapplied. 
There are few mathematicians who are fa- 
miliar enough with biological matters to real- 
ize what liberties have been taken with their 
language, and few biologists sufficiently 
mathematical to be disturbed. It remains 
then for those biologists whose linguistic 
sensibilities are keen, to be annoyed if not 
irritated by the misapplication of biological 
terms in this new language. 
But the present outlook is not without its 
hopeful features. It is to be observed that a 
movement toward segregation is taking place. 
The literature of this cult is not so widely 
1 Science, N. S., 35: 270. 
