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SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXIV. No. 605. 



But the man should always come before 

 tlie chair. It is futile to frame a chair of 

 investigation, and then to seek a man to fill 

 it. In general, the investigator who can 

 not teach at all is subject to some defect of 

 temper or to some deficiency in health. 



As the world goes, with men of our 

 breed, the primary value of research is in 

 relation to teaching. 'The real teacher is 

 the man advancing in some direction' (T. 

 H. Morgan). Many sorts of mental effort 

 go by the name of research, and properly 

 so. These range from first-hand study of 

 wiell-known problems through all phases of 

 '.sase-counting and hair-splitting— the rear- 

 rangement of old material and the descrip- 

 tion of new — up to competent and courage- 

 ous excursions into unknown realms of 

 thought and observation. Some may go 

 far and bring back rich returns, some go 

 but a little way and bring back new aspects 

 ■«of old surroundings, but all should go 

 '.somewhere and bring back something. It 

 iig: not needful that all departments should 

 adopt the same methods in research. I 

 s-ee no reason why Greek literature, for 

 example, should be treated as though it 

 were a branch of histology, and history 

 need not be stated in terms of chemical 

 reactions. It does not make work scientific 

 to make it hard. All fresh work is de- 

 sirable, all should be encouraged, though 

 to most men, even university men, only the 

 simpler forms of research can ever be pos- 

 sible. A man of no great talent for scien- 

 tific pioneering may be an efi'ective teacher, 

 but a man whose grasp of facts and prin- 

 ciples is wholly second-hand can never be 

 such. However old his conceptions and 

 however often his thoughts have been ex- 

 pressed, he must derive them afresh from 

 nature if he is to make them vital to others. 

 To the extent that he does so, he is engaged 

 in a form of research. It is his instinct 

 for first-hand contact, the joy in dealing 

 with realities, which is essential to the great 



teacher, and these traits are primarily those 

 of the investigator also. The instinct for 

 research grows with practise. It is never 

 safe to let it die. Hence the importance 

 of continuity in investigation and the need 

 of it for the teacher at all stages of his 

 development. A man capable of research 

 will do something of it wherever he is and 

 whatever his limitations. In Huxley's 

 phrase, it is 'the breath of his nostrils.' 

 With time and appliances he will do more 

 work and better work, but you may know 

 the real university man by the fact that he 

 does some work which is his own, even 

 under the most untoward conditions. He 

 is safe so long as he is growing. A grow- 

 ing man incites growth, but not even mold 

 will grow on a fossil. 



The American university is emphatically 

 a teaching university, to borrow the Eng- 

 lish distinction of schools that teach from 

 schools that examine. Its professors are 

 teachers. They are not primarily exam- 

 iners, as in the English universities of all 

 classes, nor do they have the freedom from 

 personal responsibility that is often as- 

 sumed in the universities of Germany. 

 For the rank and file of our university 

 men, teaching is the main function, and 

 investigation receives its first value from 

 the fact that adequate teaching is impos- 

 sible without it. 



In general, the university professor 

 recognizes his double duty, his actual work 

 as a teacher, and his duty as an investi- 

 gator to become a better teacher. Some 

 teaching in general aids investigation; it 

 clarifies the mind, broadens the view and 

 saves from vagaries. Teaching and investi- 

 gation in a general way are mutually help- 

 ful — if the combination is not carried too 

 far beyond the fatigue point. This varies 

 with different subjects and with different 

 men. When the two conflict, investigation 

 is likely to suffer. Research can be post- 

 poned ; teaching can not. Too much teach- 



