Febkuart 5, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



187 



the man who is to use this elaborate par- 

 aphernalia. 



I sometimes think that there is danger of 

 our becoming slaves to our machinery. 

 Life, alas ! is too short to spend any unnec- 

 essary time in over-elaborate and compli- 

 cated methods where simple and direct ones 

 would answer every purpose. That much 

 time is wasted in many laboratories through 

 the employment of unnecessarily compli- 

 cated methods, I firmly believe. 



Another phase which I think has been 

 overdone in America is the mania for stand- 

 ardizing everything. Elaborate systems of 

 recording results are often so complicated 

 as to be quite bewildering to the worker 

 trained in old-fashioned ways, and he 

 wonders sometimes at the very small output 

 of work resulting from this imposing mass 

 of machinery until he realizes that pretty 

 much all of one's time must be consumed 

 in keeping the machinery going. 



While the standardization of science, like 

 that of automobiles, may result in a good 

 general average, and make for convenience 

 and cheapness, it does not result in the 

 highest type of work. The really big work 

 in science must be done by men who are a 

 law unto themselves. The highest type of 

 original work can not be made to conform 

 to fixed rules and regulations, and our 

 American love of machinery and standard- 

 ized methods is, it seems to me, detrimental 

 to the development of originality. 



A problem that is always with us is 

 the question of teaching versus research, 

 and how far the two are compatible. I 

 think we must all admit that the teacher, 

 at least in the university, should be an in- 

 vestigator. Indeed it is hard to see how a 

 teacher who himself is not engaged in re- 

 search can expect to inspire in his students 

 a desire to become investigators. The 

 vexed question of the relative importance of 

 teaching and research can hardly be an- 



swered satisfactorily. Of course it is in- 

 cumbent on every teacher to see that his 

 teaching work is faithfully performed ; but 

 on the other hand the man who is capable 

 of carrying on important researches and is 

 willing to do so, has claims which every 

 university worthy of the name is bound to 

 respect. 



So far as my own observation goes, it 

 seems to me that the two are not incom- 

 patible, but I must also confess that it 

 usually happens that whichever is the more 

 congenial is likely to receive the greater 

 attention. 



I have very little faith in the assertion 

 so often made that the time necessary for 

 teaching is so great that no time is left for 

 research. When one reckons up the time 

 actually demanded of instructors in a well- 

 equipped university and compares it with 

 the time demanded of the average business 

 or professional man, one must admit that 

 the university professor has a very much 

 greater amount of spare time at his dis- 

 posal, which, if he really wishes to do so, 

 he may devote to research. Too many of 

 our teachers make work for themselves 

 which is quite unnecessary and is a sad 

 devourer of time, but which sometimes at 

 any rate affords a convenient explanation 

 of why they do not accomplish the great 

 results which they would invariably do if 

 only opportunity permitted. What a man 

 wants to do most, he is pretty sure to accom- 

 plish, and if investigation is reaUy what 

 he is most interested in, he wiU find some 

 means of doing it. 



Of course, aU men who occupy university 

 chairs are not for that reason necessarily 

 devotees of research, although I believe no 

 man should be appointed to a university 

 professorship who has not demonstrated 

 his ability to advance knowledge in his 

 chosen branch, and it should be expected 



