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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVI. No. 935 



eral public executive afifairs, can be teacli- 

 ers and guides to researeh students only in 

 an incidental way. The number of stu- 

 dents would eventually make demands far 

 in excess of that five to twenty per cent, of 

 the energies of each leading scientist which 

 can properly be devoted to graduate stu- 

 dents. The university wiU want the serv- 

 ices of only the seasoned workers, nearly 

 all of whom have much scientific and ad- 

 ministrative work. "While President Van 

 Hise's statement is very true, and admitted 

 by nearly all research workers, that some 

 teaching is a help to the scientists' research 

 work, yet there is always the danger that 

 the teaching wiU become too heavy. Stu- 

 dents come, and the demand on the scien- 

 tists' time is well nigh irresistible, as is 

 generally proved in case of the workers in 

 the experiment stations in the state agri- 

 cultural colleges and universities. 



These bureaus are even now more effec- 

 tive graduate schools than most people 

 realize. The government bureaus in "Wash- 

 ington constitute the most efficient graduate 

 university on earth. The students (em- 

 ployees of the departments) are picked out 

 by the Civil Service Commission and are 

 employed at living wages by Uncle Sam. 

 They enter at once under seasoned scien- 

 tists into the actual technical work for 

 which they are already in part trained by 

 their college and university education. 

 They are chosen on the basis both of their 

 ability to render service and their promise 

 of developing ability. The average is far 

 more efficient than would be the graduates 

 of our state universities, too many of whom 

 "go on and take yet one more higher course 

 because they have not impressed their 

 teachers that they have the practical abil- 

 ity to succeed" and therefore were not 

 among the graduates at once recommended 

 for positions. This present "working uni- 

 versity" gets the young men, and women, 



who are trained to do things, rather than 

 those who can merely learn of things. 

 These would of course continue to come, 

 but these virile heads of bureaus and lab- 

 oratories would indeed be loath to devote 

 their time to a dilettante class of rich 

 young men and women of native and for- 

 eign birth who come mainly to seek one 

 more degree from the "greatest univer- 

 sity." 



A flood of these people would not only 

 spoil the work of the departmental bureaus, 

 but would tend to help keep the face of our 

 educational system turned away from the 

 more vital, toward the less vital. Our uni- 

 versities are already too far removed from 

 the people. They so often look down upon 

 the great major industries of agriculture, 

 trades and industries and home-making, that 

 it is refreshing to observe that the univer- 

 sities of Wisconsin and Illinois, over which 

 the two speakers above mentioned preside, 

 are turning the tide and (in the words of 

 derision of a fellow university official) 

 they "are spreading the university all over 

 the state." The dangers to university life 

 from the wealth of its students might easily 

 be much greater in "Washington than in 

 any of the second-class universities. It 

 would soon be in a class by itself in size and 

 in the financial resources of its student 

 body. I am not a pessimist, but this, as all 

 other organizations, should be started right. 

 To be started right, it must be built in the 

 interests of the whole people, ninety per 

 cent, of whom are the common people. The 

 individual interests of its students and the 

 interests of the universities from which 

 they come are very secondary matters. The 

 interests of science and of the masses are 

 its real purposes. It must improve and 

 correct wrong educational tendencies rather 

 than enhance them. One of its functions 

 should be to help turn our educational sys- 

 tem about so as to be more vital to that 



