Tebkuakt 23, 1917] 



SCIENCE 



177 



order to evade facing a good many pretty 

 stern facts, we are almost ready to accept 

 as efficient any public confession of faith in 

 crude notions about political freedom. We 

 really dread discussing biologic problems. 

 But what indications are there that we 

 are on the right path of biologic discussion ? 

 The efforts to remedy the present neglect of 

 the study of the brain and nervous system 

 are few, because the interest of the general 

 public has not been aroused to the necessity 

 for it. It is a most curious comment upon 

 the lack of interest shown in our universi- 

 ties and institutions devoted to research, 

 that so little attention is paid to making 

 any adequate provisions for increasing our 

 knowledge of these organs — the brain and 

 nervous system — which are commonly es- 

 teemed to be the chief stock in trade of in- 

 stitutions of learning. While encourage- 

 ment is given to those who delight to 

 speculate upon man 's place in nature, prac- 

 tically little has been done to assist in the 

 determination of those structural and 

 functional differences of the nervous sys- 

 tem that are responsible for our elevation 

 above the plane occupied by our simian an- 

 cestors. The time is rapidly passing, as 

 Yerkes has pointed out, when on account of 

 the disappearance of the higher apes it will 

 be possible to trace the various gradations 

 in our ancestral line. Of equal importance 

 to these problems should be the studies 

 made upon the nervous system with the ob- 

 ject of correlating the structural and func- 

 tional changes taking place during the 

 early stages of the life of the individual. 

 With the methods now at our command 

 this particular field of investigation should 

 offer fruitful results to the student. By 

 carrying out these comparative studies a 

 great deal of valuable information could be 

 obtained which would throw light upon the 

 fundamental nature of the adjusting proc- 

 esses and indicate the order followed as the 

 capacity for adaptation was extended. 



Think of the extraordinary opportuni- 

 ties existing in New York — the greatest 

 melting-pot the world has ever seen — for 

 the analysis of human behavior ! Parents, 

 educators, social workers, physicians, an- 

 thropologists, criminologists, eugenists, 

 those endeavoring to find improved meth- 

 ods for increasing industrial efficiency, 

 lawmakers, and all persons interested in the 

 acquisition of knowledge relating to the 

 regulation of human behavior, need to feel 

 the inspiration coming from the realization 

 of working towards a common goal.^ 



It would not be difficult to plan some cen- 

 tral organization aiming to coordinate ef- 

 fort and to correlate results in attacking 

 problems that are of the most vital impor- 

 tance for our personal and racial salvation. 

 If we continue merely to dabble the tragic 

 results will be even more appalling than 

 they are to-day. Let us not deceive our- 

 selves any longer nor try to apologize for 

 our failure to understand and direct in- 

 telligently human energy by referring as 

 "evidences of organized charity" to the 

 application of remedies to correct the end 

 stages of imperfect adjustment in num- 

 berless people. 



In addition to a coordinating center of 

 activities there is urgent need in New 

 York for a great university psychiatric 

 clinic dedicated to the investigation of the 

 countless forms of imperfect adjustment 

 generally described as mental disease. To 

 those of us who are familiar with the meth- 

 ods used by the modern alienists to analyze 

 the personality and to trace the genesis of 

 these disorders, it is obvious that their 

 knowledge is absolutely essential for the 

 reorganization of our entire educational 

 system. By the promptness with which 



2 Sums expended annually by the City of New 

 York in directing human energy: 



Education $47,000,000 



Protection of life and property 59,000,000 



Charities 12,000,000 



