May 16, 1919] 



SCIENCE 



457 



training £is possible for particular lines of 

 work To the teachers of the fundamental 

 sciences, the whole time of a college course 

 seems inadequate for the first. To the spe- 

 cialist all the time seems required for the 

 second. Both aims are proper aims but they 

 are forever at variance. The course of study 

 is always a compromise between the two; and 

 the difficulties of making the compromise sat- 

 isfactory grow with ever increasing knowl- 

 edge. Tet human life is not appreciably 

 lengthened, and the years that a youth may 

 wholly devote to preparation for service are 

 not increased. Probably some time may be 

 gained for special training by more rigorous 

 selection of materials for fundamental courses, 

 by the limitation of the work of these to 

 essentials, and by avoidance of duplication. 

 This can be done and should be done. 



Dr. Howard suggests that we give more 

 time to taxonomy and ecology and less to 

 physiology and genetics. This is a good sug- 

 gestion. We are all out of balance. Some of 

 our laboratories resemble up-to-date shops for 

 quantity production of fabricated genetic 

 hypotheses. Some of our publications make 

 a prodigious effort to translate everything bio- 

 logical into terms of physiology and mechan- 

 ism — an effort as labored as it is unnecessary 

 and unprofitable. Why not let the facts speak 

 for themselves ? Our laboratories are full of 

 fashions. They go from one extreme to an- 

 other. In my high school days we learned 

 systems of classification; in my college days 

 we did nothing but dissecting; later came 

 morphology and embryology, then experi- 

 mental zoology, then genetics, and the devotees 

 of each new subject have looked back upon 

 the old with something like that disdain with 

 which a debutante regards a last year's gown. 

 Natural history and classification are perhaps 

 long enough out of date, so that interest in 

 them may again be revived. I hope so; for 

 these are the phases of biology by means of 

 which a youth is best oriented for more spe- 

 cial work. Then, too, they are immensely 

 practical. One has to deal with species, and 

 must be able to recognize them; and all 

 economic procedure is applied ecology. 



As to the training of men for report making 

 that Dr. Howard suggests, I am a bit more 

 doubtful. There are reports and reports. 

 For the making out of reports merely to com- 

 ply with governmental red-tape, I do not care 

 to train men. Experience is the only school 

 for this. And as to the training needed 

 for making reports of the results of investi- 

 gation, it is often training in restraint that 

 is most needed. I hope it is not training in 

 the construction of imposing and impressive 

 diagrams that Dr. Howard has in mind. I 

 have seen some such at these meetings, biiilt 

 like a sky-scraper, and far harder to under- 

 stand than the few simple facts they were in- 

 tended to set forth and explain! I set but 

 three requirements before students in my own 

 laboratory: (1) Clear analysis of the subject 

 matter, (2) simple drawings, (3) good Eng- 

 lish — and not too much of it. 



After all, if Dr. Howard has to take men 

 from the universities and train them on his 

 job, I do not feel badly about it, nor wholly 

 responsible. Indeed, if we in the universities 

 do our best, as assuredly we will, I think this 

 will always be so; and if it were not so I 

 should know that Dr. Howard's work was 

 dead, and making no further progress; for, 

 faster than we can equip and organize our 

 teaching to meet new needs, new methods will 

 evolve and demands for help will spring up 

 in unexi>ected places. 



Now as to cooperation. Dr. Howard sug- 

 gests that the government provide means 

 whereby properly trained men from the uni- 

 versity laboratories may visit the government 

 field laboratories for the purpose of acquaint- 

 ing themselves with the work there going on. 

 Nothing better could be devised to give that 

 purpose and direction to our teaching that he 

 desires. Nothing could do more to infuse 

 new vigor into our work of research. It 

 would result first of all in substituting for 

 some of the puny problems of our laboratories 

 of sickly forcing-house types, others of the 

 robust field-grown type, to which a young man 

 might give his time and labor without re- 

 serve, and without a question as to its useful- 

 ness and value. It would check the tendency 



