ApriL 19, 1912] 
limited inheritance and other important 
problems connected with inheritance stud- 
ies, but I have already too severely tested 
your endurance. 
As breeders and genetists we have every 
reason to congratulate ourselves on the 
rapid advance of our science and the grow- 
ine recognition of the importance of the 
subject in practical agriculture. Colleges 
throughout the country are extending their 
courses of study to include genetics. In 
almost all of the experiment stations stud- 
les on genetics and practical breeding are 
now given fully as much attention as any 
other subject. With all of this advance, 
however, only in a few institutions have 
there been established special professor- 
ships or investigatorships in breeding 
or genetics. If the subject of genetics is to 
be properly taught or the investigations 
are to reach the highest standard, it is clear 
that men should have this as their special 
and recognized field. The subject should 
no longer be assigned indiscriminately to 
the horticulturist, agronomist, animal hus- 
bandmen or dairymen. We must establish 
more professorships of genetics or breeding. 
HERBERT J. WEBBER 
CoRNELL UNIVERSITY 
GENERAL HYGIENE AS A REQUIRED 
COLLEGE COURSE? 
During the last two or three decades, 
scientific method has been increasingly 
applied to the solution of problems bearing 
upon the health of the individual and of 
the community. Out of the region of con- 
troversy, in the study of problems of the 
maintenance and preservation of health, 
there has thus come to maturity during 
comparatively recent years a body of or- 
ganized knowledge, of which the cardinal 
facts and broader methods may, perhaps, 
+The substance of an address given at Oberlin 
College, December 1, 1911. 
SCIENCE 
609 
¢ 
be grouped together under the title ‘‘gen- 
eral hygiene.’’ The more technical and 
detailed side of the same subject is already 
taught as a professional course in some of 
our medical schools as ‘‘hygiene’’ or, with 
nominally a more specialized bearing, as 
““public health.’’ On the other hand, a 
somewhat slight and semi-popular treat- 
ment of several hygienic topics is given in 
certain colleges by the instructors in_phys- 
ical training. Between these two types of 
instruction, a course in general hygiene, 
very substantial although non-technical, 
would strike a happy mean. 
Before answering the question whether 
the teaching of general hygiene, thus de- 
fined, to every college undergraduate is 
necessary, it may first be enquired whether 
the average student is not already well- 
informed on this subject. On investiga- 
tion, it will be found that he may have, in 
an informal way, attended one or two pop- 
ular health lectures; that he has a hear-say, 
gossiping knowledge of the names of the 
commoner diseases, with a more personal 
but badly proportioned knowledge of one 
or two; has never seen a microbe, although 
he can use the word correctly; trusts im- 
plicitly to the initiative of the local civic 
authorities (who are less well educated 
than himself) for improvement in his sup- 
plies of water, milk and food; and is in- 
debted to his newspaper or magazine for 
a variety of scraps of knowledge in the 
domain of preventive medicine, which 
seraps, if not partially forgotten, are ad- 
mixed with much that is vague, or con- 
troversial or else fallacious. The fact is 
that his knowledge of general hygiene is 
altogether accidental and amateurish in 
character. Now, if the average under- 
eraduate is in a twilight of ignorance in 
regard to aspects of this subject where 
knowledge would be vitally important to 
himself, he is in still greater darkness in 
