February 28, 1919] 



SCIENCE 



203 



bibliographical assistants, but it would seek to 

 have the full cooperation of all scientists. Tt 

 would undertake to furnish bibliographies on 

 any topic, with or without abstracts, and 

 within reasonable time. I suspect that an or- 

 ganization of this kind might pay a good ix)r- 

 tion of its current expenses, through fees 

 charged for the work done. — I might follow 

 this dream into further detail, but I imagine 

 the time is not yet ripe for that, what I wish 

 to do here is to leave you with a very clear 

 impression that this suggestion has great 

 promise, that it is quite within the realm of 

 ix)ssibility, and that it may ultimately be 

 realized if we can unite in calling for it. 

 It would avoid enormous wastes of time and 

 energy on the part of many scientific workers 

 and research institutions, and it would give 

 congenial and dignified employment to many 

 who wish to serve in scientific work but who 

 may not find their best places as teachers or 

 research workers. 



Botanical Research. — E^arding research 

 itself, and how we may best mobilize our 

 limited strength so as to accelerate the ad- 

 vance of knowledge as much as may be, I 

 shall confine my suggestions to three general 

 topics: (a) the planning of research, (6) the 

 procuring of data, and (c) the interpretation 

 and presentation of results. But before we 

 turn to the consideration of such suggestions 

 as I may offer here, I ask your attention 

 to two very striking characteristics of scien- 

 tific research in general. First, scientific re- 

 search is not recognized as an occupation or 

 profession. We speak of research workers and 

 emphasize the great value of their work to 

 mankind, but the draft questionnaire (pre- 

 sumably the result of a number of able minds 

 attempting to classify the iwssible occupa- 

 tions of our citizens) failed to show any such 

 occupation. You might be a farmer or a 

 blacksmith or a chauffeur, you might be a 

 lawyer or a physician or a preacher, but you 

 could not legally be a research worker or 

 scientific investigator! An investigator in 

 physiology might call himself a teacher — for 

 he surely has to tell others about his findings 

 — but this was misleading imless an explana- 



tion was made. On the other hand, he might 

 call himself an agricultural worker, engaged 

 in an agricultural enterprise — since his phys- 

 iological studies may frequently have some- 

 thing to do with agricultural plants — but this 

 also was misleading and suggested familiarity 

 with plows and manure-forks rather than with 

 laboratory apparatus of precision. 



My reason for introducing this somewhat 

 startling observation is to call attention to the 

 fact that scientific research is unorganized 

 and imrecognized as a reputable occupation. 

 Galileo had to steal away and perform his 

 experiments in secret, on account of a devil- 

 ishly inquisitive church, Leonardo had to get 

 time for his researches between trips to the 

 ducal palace to do odd jobs of repairing the 

 plumbing and such-like things, and it appears 

 that modem science has left this whole matter 

 of research in much the same condition as 

 that in which it was in those old times. A 

 teacher may obtain some time for research 

 between elementary classes in arithmetic or 

 agronomy, a lawyer may carry on research on 

 Simdays and holidays, but you must admit 

 that, for the most part, scientific research is 

 left to individual activity and is not suffi- 

 ciently recognized to warrant official mention 1 



This is the more notable when we recall that 

 the educational aspect of scientific responsi- 

 bility is very thoroughly organized and largely 

 standardized, with great government support 

 of many kinds and with enormous endow- 

 ments supporting libraries, museums, lectures. 

 We have public recognition of the fact that 

 knowledge is to be carefully preserved and 

 passed on in available form to coming genera- 

 tions, but it is not as yet practically recognized 

 that it is anybody's main business in life to in- 

 crease knowledge through investigation. — It is 

 a noteworthy fact that research is frequently 

 expected of college and university teachers, 

 that they are frequently appointed on the basis 

 of published papers presenting the results of 

 research, and it is just as noteworthy that 

 such a teacher must generally carry on his 

 investigations in a surreptitious way; his 

 teaching activities are recognized but his re- 

 search activities are not, even though their 



