Maech 13, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



376 



prescribe for the imperfect mental or phys- 

 ical adjustments of their charges, to estab- 

 lish habits of thought or behavior, to correct 

 defective habits by developing ci^mpensa- 

 tory ones, or to lay down guiding principles 

 for the most efficient furtherance of normal 

 functions ? 



Or, to turn to the matter of natural en- 

 dowment, how many of them realize that 

 what a child becomes is determined in great 

 measure by its inborn capacities and that 

 education consists largely in applying the 

 stimuli necessary to set going these poten- 

 tialities and of affording opportunity for 

 their expression? That of the good pro- 

 pensities some will require merely the 

 start, others will need to be fostered and 

 coaxed into permanence through the stereo- 

 typing effects of proper habits ; that of the 

 dangerous or bad, some must be kept dor- 

 mant by preventing certain kinds of stimu- 

 lation, others repressed by the cultivation 

 of inhibitive tendencies, and yet others 

 smothered or excluded by substituting in 

 their place desirable traits? And yet if 

 they are ignorant of all this are they not 

 pretty much in the position of one who 

 would attempt to operate a complicated 

 engine without any undetstanding of its 

 mechanism ? 



In this whole matter of human heredity, 

 or eugenics, clearly the biologist is the one 

 to lead the way, and yet we find this field 

 being exploited by all sorts of impossible 

 fanatics and incompetents. In spite of the 

 badinage of the press and the confusion 

 resulting from its use of the term eugenics 

 in many senses, nearly all of them equally 

 wrong, the science itself has come to stay, 

 and the public, sensing the vital truth at 

 bottom of it, is going to demand more and 

 more enlightenment. Surely if anywhere 

 we need here to guard against the ambitious 

 enthusiast who promises the impossible, 

 who, for instance, at one sword thrust 



would stay the demon of degeneracy and 

 restore a sort of pristine purity to the hu- 

 man race. And yet how is the public to be 

 guided aright unless biologists, the ones 

 most competent to advise, step forward and 

 keep them in touch with the more solid ad- 

 vances which are being made through the 

 sure though unspectacular methods of re- 

 search ? 



In our own institution I find a strong de- 

 mand on the part of general students for at 

 least an additional lecture course in genet- 

 ics with emphasis on the eugenic phase. 

 Some take the elementary embryology as a 

 sort of laboratory course to accompany the 

 work and it seems to me that this is a com- 

 bination to be commended. I see no rea- 

 son, moreover, why such students should 

 not be encouraged to take, as many do with 

 advantage, courses in ecology, animal be* 

 havior, elementary entomology or parasitol- 

 ogy, according to their taste, even though 

 they do not take the regular courses in in- 

 vertebrate zoology or comparative anatomy 

 which personally I feel are well-nigh indis- 

 pensable to those who expect to teach zool- 

 ogy or become investigators. 



But how, it may be urged, are we to find 

 a place for the new subjects if we are still 

 to retain our traditional courses? Will 

 these not occupy quite all of the time that 

 can be devoted to zoology? 



One way to gain considerable time is to 

 shorten some of these older subjects. This 

 can be done without sacrifice of thorough- 

 ness on the part of the student, it seems to 

 me, by dissecting fewer forms in detail and 

 using the remaining forms largely for the 

 study of the more significant features in 

 which they are different. Why, for in- 

 stance, have the student dissect out in mi- 

 nute detail the arterial system of the dog- 

 fish, perch, necturus, turtle, pigeon and eat 

 when a careful dissection of this system in 

 the dog-fish, necturus and the eat, together 



