Mat 11, 1917] 



SCIENCE 



451 



from which becomes seriously affected 

 whenever their reliability is brought into 

 question. The ultra-conservative attitude 

 of scientists which results from these and 

 other causes is as obvious as it is deplor- 

 able. 



As we look back over the past and, study- 

 ing the advances of science, mark off upon 

 the way the stations at each of which a new 

 horizon has opened, it is easy to see that 

 the successive marches, like the halts be- 

 tween, have been far too long. The attempt 

 to reproduce from each station the entire 

 panorama of the horizon has led to a 

 sketchiness and an inaccuracy in the de- 

 picting of all remoter portions of the field, 

 which might have been avoided had the 

 viewpoint been promptly moved forward 

 so soon as the nature of the nearer terrane 

 had become firmly established. My appeal 

 is, therefore, for an individual study of 

 those theories of science with which each 

 worker is concerned, and for an early deci- 

 sion upon their availability whenever a 

 judgment is warranted. Accepted, if neces- 

 sary, as working hypotheses to be rigidly 

 tested by observation and experiment, the 

 new ideas are infinitely to be preferred to 

 those theories which have been found 

 wanting under the tests either of experi- 

 ment or of searching observation. 



It might perhaps be asserted that the pic- 

 ture which I have drawn of the past and 

 present of scientific theories is one not cal- 

 culated to cause entire satisfaction; and I 

 could hardly deny the truth of the asser- 

 tion; but when, I would ask, has either an 

 institution or an individual been other 

 than benefited through a searching self- 

 examination? Even the shock to our self- 

 pride which came with the revelations of 

 this bellum period is not fraught with per- 

 manent disaster. Since the condition 

 existed, it is far better that we should 



know it, and so far as may be possible pro- 

 vide against its recurrence in the future. 



The encouraging feature of our entire 

 survey is the evidence which it shows of 

 a steady evolution toward better condi- 

 tions; for no one can truthfully deny that 

 the scientific world is to-day in a far better 

 position than it has ever occupied in the 

 past; and the outlook for the future is so 

 much the more encouraging. 



"William H. Hobbs 



Univeesity or Michigan 



HERBERT W. CONN 



It has been said of America that it is pecul- 

 iarly able to produce the right man at the right 

 time when emergency calls. Herbert W. Conn 

 was not only a cultivated scientist, but a per- 

 sonality, because he embodied in himself the 

 initiation of a great movement in America. 

 ,The science of bacteriology as developed in 

 Europe through Pasteur and Koch attracted 

 his attention in the early years of his educa- 

 tion, and led him to feel that this science had 

 a great function to perform in connection with 

 milk and dairy products in America. In the 

 early eighties his pioneer work was begun in 

 milk bacteriology and was developed in his 

 laboratory in Wesleyan University, and under 

 his supervision in Storrs Agricultural Experi- 

 ment Station, Connecticut. Whatever lines 

 of inflxience have been developed through later 

 years in the improvement of municipal milk 

 supplies and in the improvement of sanitary 

 conditions on dairy farms, when traced back 

 to their sources, will show a connection with 

 and a stimidation from the early milk bac- 

 teriology of Herbert W. Conn. He took part 

 in the councils of those who established the 

 certified milk industry, and assisted in fram- 

 ing the regulations which were first drawn up 

 in the early nineties for the control of certified 

 dairies. He suggested the production of sani- 

 tary butter through the pasteurization of 

 cream, and the use of pure cultures of lactic 

 acid bacteria. He was among the first to show 

 the close relationship between tmsanitary con- 



