312 
have been limited to equatorial Africa and 
certainly it had not reached prior to 1906 or 
1907 the cultivated district of the Nile Valley. 
where cotton has been a commercial crop of 
importance for at least a hundred years. This 
point of view is now held by the experts who 
have studied this insect in Africa and India 
such as Willcocks, Fletcher and Ballou. 
CG. L. Marnarr 
HARRY KIRKE WOLFE 
Proressor Harry Kirke Wo.rs, head of the 
department of philosophy in the University 
of Nebraska, died suddenly on July 30 last 
at Wheatland, Wyoming, whither he had gone 
for a brief outing. Dr. Wolfe was born in IIli- 
nois, in 1858, but he was a Nebraskan by rear- 
ing and he received his collegiate education in 
the state university. In 1883 he went to Ber- 
lin to carry further the study of the classics, 
which was then his interest, but while in Ger- 
many he was won to psychology, and changing 
to Leipzig became one of the group of young 
Americans who had been attracted by the fame 
of Wilhelm Wundt, and who were to revolu- 
tionize the teaching of the science upon their 
return to America. Dr. Wolfe was in the van- 
guard of this movement. He received his doc- 
torate in 1886, and in 1889 he was made pro- 
fessor of philosophy in his alma mater, where 
previously this field had been the prerogative 
of the college head. Immediately he began to 
build up the physiological and psychophysical 
foundations of his subject, creating ‘the first 
laboratories in psychology open to undergradu- 
ates in the country—a feature of the instruc- 
tion which to the end was distinctive of his 
work. From 1889 to 1897 Dr. Wolfe’s work 
was attended with a truly phenomenal success, 
not only in the immediate strength of his de- 
partment but also in its influence, for he 
started not a few young men toward the ad- 
anced cultivation of his science—among them 
Professors Pillsbury of Michigan and Bentley 
of Illinois—as well as of the broader field of 
philosophy. It was in this period, too, that he 
published a number of monographie articles in 
psychophysics (out of a great series planned), 
and he was connected with the appearance of 
SCIENCE 
[N. S. Vou. XLVIITI. No. 1239 
the American Journal of Psychology. Un- 
happily the career thus splendidly begun was 
interrupted by one of those accesses of 
bigotry which sometimes seize college authori- 
ties; and under absurd political and religious 
charges he was asked to resign in 1897. In the 
period from 1897 until 1905 Dr. Wolfe was en- 
gaged in public school work, with the result 
that his interest in secondary education be- 
came the predominant one for the remainder 
of his life. Im 1905 he was called to the 
University of Montana, and two years later 
back to the University of Nebraska, where 
again he became head of the department which 
years before he had founded. This position 
he held until his death. In this latter period, 
while his old interest in experimental psychol- 
ogy was as keen as ever, it had constantly the 
bias of the secondary school needs in mind, 
and his laboratories became the training 
grounds for scores of young men and women 
who were to enter the public school field. Cer- 
tainly there are few, if any, teachers in the 
middle west who have so profoundly and 
beneficially influenced the later development 
of its secondary education. 
Such in brief is the outward career of a 
man whom all who knew him knew to be pos- 
sessed of a genius for teaching. There are few 
qualities which the teacher should possess 
which he did not own in exalted measure: 
keenness and kindness, unfailing humor and 
patience and generosity of soul, and the power 
to inspire, all these were his; and he was loved 
by those under his influence as few men are 
loved. It is an irony—perhaps attaching to his 
quiet yet steadfast personality, for he was 
above all a man of principle—that such a man 
should twice in his career have come under 
the charges of malicious ignorance. The first 
occasion was in 1897. Ten years later, when 
he was returned to his old position his vindi- 
cation came (as it was bound to come), though 
meantime the character of his life work had 
been once for all altered. The second oceca- 
sion was in June of 1918, when through idle 
gossip his name was dragged before the in- 
quest into loyalty forced upon the university 
by the State Council of Defense. He was, of 
