February 14, 1919] 



SCIENCE 



169 



pletion in 1884. Under the style of director. 

 Sir William Flower succeeded Sir Richard 

 Owen, and he retired in 1898. For the next 

 decade Sir E. Ray Lanlcester was director, 

 and he was followed by Sir Lazarus Fletcher 

 early in 1910. 



Dr. J. D. Falcoxer, lecturer in geography 

 in Glasgow University, has been granted fur- 

 ther leave of absence in order that he may 

 act at the first director of the Geological 

 Survey of Nigeria. 



.appointed professor of chemistry and head of 

 the dciiartment at Southern Methodist Uni- 

 versity, Dallas, Texas. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 NEWS 



A GIFT of $50,000 from Lieutenant Howard 

 H. Spaulding, has been made for the physio- 

 logical laboratory building fund of Yale Uni- 

 versity. The principle of this fund may be 

 used by the imiversity at any time in its dis- 

 cretion for the construction of a physiological 

 laboratory and meanwhile the income is to be 

 used annually in meeting the expenses of tlie 

 department of physiology. 



IIr George Eonar, president of the Dundee 

 Chamber of Commerce, has given £25,000 for 

 conunercial education in University College, 

 Dundee. 



The Royal Edinburgh Asylum for the In- 

 sane has offered an endowment of £10,000 

 towards a chair of mental diseases in the 

 University of Edinburgh. 



Plans for the introduction of a course on 

 public health and industrial medicine in the 

 college of medicine of the university of Cin- 

 cinnati are being made by Dean C. R. Holmes. 

 The coi'.rse has the support of the Unite<l 

 States Public Health Service and it is planned 

 to conduct it on the cooperative basis some- 

 what like tliat used in the college of engi- 

 neering. 



Professor Hal W. Moseley has been pro- 

 moted to be associate professor of chemistry in 

 Tulane University, New Orleans, La. 



Professor E. O. Heuse, formerly instructor 

 in physical chemistry at the University of 

 Illinois, and later professor of chemistry at 

 Monmouth College, Monmouth, 111., has been 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE 



APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 



To the Editor of Sciexce : At the close of 

 his interesting address on " Scientific Per- 

 sonnel Work in the Army," Professor Thom- 

 dike remarks : " Making psychology for busi- 

 ness or industry or the amiy is harder than 

 making psychology for other psychologists, and 

 intrinsically requires higher talents." It is 

 well that a man should believe whole-heartedly 

 in his own work and magnify it accordingly. 

 But it is a pity to draw comparisons of this 

 sort. 



Reduced to its lowest terms. Professor 

 Thorndike's question is : Which is the harder 

 taskmaster, one's employer or one's con- 

 science? And he decides unequivocally in 

 favor of the employer. I should rather say : 

 It depends! For Professor Thorndike, the 

 employer is a creature of iron, who demands 

 an adequate solution of a given problem by 

 a fixed and early date, and who has no grain 

 of sympathy with unsuccessful work and the 

 unsuccessful worker. It is possible, however, 

 that the employer might extend the date: even 

 if he had not the good will, he might be 

 obliged to. It is possible also that he might 

 sympathize with the unsuccessful work, enter 

 into it, and find in it something worthy of 

 commendation and even of publication. Con- 

 science, on the other hand, is for Professor 

 Thorndike an easy mistress ; she allows you 

 yourself to ask the questions for which you 

 proceed to find answers. That sort of con- 

 science seems to me to pertain to the dilettante 

 rather than to the man of science. To the 

 scientific investigator the whole front of his 

 science is one great problem, and he plunges 

 in where the obscurity is thickest. He may 

 hesitate between two or three calls: experi- 

 mental psychologists have, in recent years, 

 been divided on the question whether the prob- 

 lem of perception or the problem of thought 

 is the more insistent: but Professor Thorn- 



