Febeuaey 5, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



189 



technical training when compared with edu- 

 cation as an end itself. Every one can ap- 

 preciate the value of making two blades of 

 grass grow where before there was but one, 

 but the man who makes new ideas sprout is 

 too apt to be looked upon as a harmless 

 crank, if indeed he is regarded at all. 



It may be that a reform in our educa- 

 tional system is necessary. There are symp- 

 toms of a revolt against the extreme utili- 

 tarian views now current, and it is possible 

 that we may see a tendency to return, in 

 part at least, to the older educational ideals. 

 There can be no question that greater at- 

 tention paid to the humanities would en- 

 courage a love for pure science as con- 

 trasted with applied science. The student 

 who has had a sound training in literature, 

 history, language, and in the whole range 

 of what we term the "humanities" will 

 certainly have a broader outlook than the 

 man whose training has been severely voca- 

 tional. Such a student will be far more 

 likely to appreciate the value of purely 

 scientific work whose importance is to be 

 measured in terms of intellectual satisfac- 

 tion rather than in dollars and cents. 



This, then, I believe, is one way by which 

 we may hope to recruit the ranks of inves- 

 tigatoi's in the higher lines of science. An- 

 other benefit which would result from a 

 more liberal training of the majority 

 of our university students would be a far 

 greater appreciation of the results of such 

 scientific work by men who are not them- 

 selves scientists. It may be hoped after we 

 pass beyond the era of great accumulation 

 of wealth that there will be a greater ap- 

 preciation of the less material results of the 

 higher education. Just now, it must be 

 confessed, this era does not appear to be 

 imminent. 



Having secured our special man, our next 

 concern is to see that his efficiency is devel- 

 oped to the utmost. While, of course, it is 

 essential that our man must first receive a 



thorough training in the fundamentals of 

 botany, when the time comes for him to 

 venture on original research every effort 

 should be made to discover where his special 

 ability lies, and we should not try to force 

 him to work along lines which are espe- 

 cially attractive to ourselves, should he 

 show a strong bent for work in some other 

 direction. Here is where the danger of 

 trying to follow the latest fashion comes in. 

 It is very likely that our student may 

 have a very lukewarm interest in Karyo- 

 kinesis, Mendelism, Mutation, or what- 

 ever the latest thing may be, and an effort 

 to force him into these subjects contrary to 

 his own preference may result disastrously. 



Of course, in directing the work of stu- 

 dents, and we might also say in the selec- 

 tion of our own subjects for research, we 

 have to consider not only the importance 

 of the topics, but also — and this is very im- 

 portant — their practicability. I do not 

 mean by this that we are to look for easy 

 subjects, but there are too many fascinating 

 problems, such for instance as the physical 

 basis of hereditary transmission, which from 

 their very complexity seem almost hopeless 

 of solution, although we can make no end 

 of ingenious hypotheses, almost as many 

 indeed as there are investigators. Such 

 investigations are almost certain to be in- 

 conclusive and it is very questionable 

 whether, in many cases, time devoted to 

 these might not better have been dedicated 

 to something more likely to yield more 

 tangible results. In this connection it may 

 not, perhaps, be impertinent to call atten- 

 tion to the very loose way in which much 

 of the work now so popular on the problems 

 of heredity is carried on. The tendencies 

 to assume that the phenomena observed, in 

 animals for example, are also immediately 

 applicable to plants and vice versa has led 

 to a great deal of inaccurate thinking and 

 writing. 



It can hardly be said that any special 



