Maech 30, 1917] 



SCIENCE 



311 



ring of living fibrous tissue, the old dangers o£ 

 such an operation being completely obviated. 



I have referred thus to my personal experience 

 because asked to do so, and these examples are 

 perhaps sufficient to illustrate the impediments 

 which the existing law places in the way of re- 

 search by medical men engaged in practise, whose 

 ideas, if developed, would often be the most fruit- 

 ful in beneficent results. 



But even those who are specialists in physiology 

 or pathology, and have already access to research 

 work seriously hampered by the necessity of apply- 

 ing for licenses for all investigations, and the diffi- 

 culty and delay often encountered in obtaining 

 them. 



Our law on this subject should never have been 

 passed, and ought to be repealed. It serves no 

 good purpose, and interferes seriously with in- 

 quiries which are of paramount importance to man- 

 kind. Believe me, sincerely yours. Listek 



QUOTATIONS 



SCIENCE AND THE GERMAN CIVIL SERVICE> 



The committee of the Institution of German 

 Engineers urges that steps should be taken by 

 modification of the law in the Confederated 

 States, and particularly in Prussia, by remov- 

 ing the obstructions of the law of 1906 con- 

 cerning eligibility for the higher posts in the 

 civil service so as to make it possible that not 

 only lawyers, but also graduates of the tech- 

 nical high schools should be able to take up 

 careers in the higher civil service. 



Already before the war, after exhaustive dis- 

 cussions extending over many years, the de- 

 mand had been expressed that candidates for 

 the higher posts in the civil service should be 

 given a scientific academic training, so as to 

 enable them to have a full understanding of 

 the conditions of public life upon which in- 

 dustrial questions and the requirements of 

 trade and commerce exert a preponderating 

 influence at the present day. The war has con- 

 fronted the state with an unexpected number 

 of new problems that have caused it to call into 



1 Translation in the London Times Educational 

 Supplement of a letter in favor of the opening of 

 the German civil service to men of scientific train- 

 ing which has been addressed to Herr von Beth- 

 mann Hollweg by the Institution of German Engi- 

 neers. 



its service the intellect of the most diverse 

 professions. This extension of admission to 

 the higher careers in the civil service that has 

 been introduced under the pressure of the cir- 

 cumstances of the time must be extended, the 

 barriers that stiU exist in this respect must be 

 removed, if it is to be possible to ensure the full 

 development of the economic forces of the 

 country after the war. It has now become an 

 imperative necessity that the demand that has 

 been expressed for many years by the Institu- 

 tion of German Engineers should be fidfilled, 

 and that university graduates, particularly of 

 the technical high schools, should be admitted 

 to the higher grades of the civil service, so as to 

 place the selection for this career on a broader 

 basis. 



Already ten years ago, on the occasion of the 

 discussions in the Prussian Diet on the gov- 

 ernment proposals concerning the change of 

 the course of study for law (1903), and later, 

 after their rejection, in the discussions on the 

 law concerning eligibility for careers in the 

 higher civil service (1906), the government ad- 

 mitted readily that the training of the higher 

 civil service officials did not correspond with 

 the requirements of the day. The removal of 

 this defect was unsuccessfully attempted at 

 that time by a proposed reform of the academic 

 curriculum, and is supposed now to have been 

 achieved by means of the law of 1906 by meas- 

 ures that only take effect subsequent to the 

 academic study. Later experience has shown 

 that the method that has been adopted is 

 hardly likely to be able to impart to the coming 

 generation of state oificials a special under- 

 standing of the economic processes that govern 

 life in our days. The training of the majority 

 of higher-grade officials in the civil service and 

 communal bodies that has become customary 

 and has been determined by the law consists in 

 a secondary school education that has a par- 

 ticular bias towards the humanities, and a 

 short university course which is almost exclu- 

 sively composed of legal subjects. 



The course of study laid down for the law- 

 yers is at the same time, and without change, 

 also the course of study for the officials of the 

 civil service. This rigid cormection of profes- 



