July 12, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



43 



humiliation you will have. Be a good 

 mixer. Give and take. Meet every obliga- 

 tion. On the basis of common decency 

 make all the friends you can. Then you 

 will carry the spirit of your university 

 with you and do much to pay the debt 

 which you will always owe her. 



But be on the alert for special opportuni- 

 ties to help her. Assume not too conclu- 

 sively that it must be in the conventional 

 way. The unexpected will happen. Half 

 a dozen years ago the richest man in the 

 country became suddenly ill. In the ab- 

 sence of his regular physician he called in 

 a young graduate of the Harvard School 

 of Medicine and impulsively assured him 

 that if he would get him out of that scrape 

 he would pay any charge that he might 

 make. The case was not serious to an edu- 

 cated man. The young man understood 

 the difficulty and soon he wrought the 

 needed cure. No bill was sent and in time 

 it was asked for. The young physician 

 reminded the multimillionaire of the prom- 

 ise. "Oh, yes," he said, "but I assumed, 

 of course, that your charge would be within 

 reason." The doctor's time had come. He 

 said: "I shall make no charge, but I shall 

 ask you to do something for me. The Har- 

 vard School of Medicine needs help. I 

 would help her if I could. Under all the 

 circumstances I feel warranted in asking 

 you to look into the matter with a disposi- 

 tion to aid her justly, as you easily may." 

 The old man said, ' ' Would you like to bear 

 a message to President Eliot?" "Yes." 

 ' ' Ask him to come and tell me all about it. ' ' 

 In a week the man of wealth had given his 

 pledge to the president of Harvard for a 

 million when the balance should be raised, 

 and in a month the five millions had been 

 assured which have erected and equipped 

 the finest plant for a medical college that 

 is to be found in the wide, wide world. 



Tou may not accomplish all these things. 



but if you will aim at them, if you will put 

 the training of this university to its logical 

 use, I am sure that when the long shadows 

 come they will bring ease and comfort and 

 honor and that when it is all over there 

 will be peace with the hereafter. 



Andrew S. Drapek 

 Depaetment of Education, 

 Albany, N. Y. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 



A Text-hook of Botany and Pharmacognosy, 

 intended for the use of students of phar- 

 macy, etc. By Henry Kbaemer, Ph.B., 

 Ph.D., A.B. Pp. 840. Illustrated with 321 

 plates and upward of 1,500 figures. Lippin- 

 cott & Co. 



To regard a piece of work as good pharma- 

 ceutical botany, under the educational condi- 

 tions which have existed in modern pharmacy, 

 is practically equivalent to a declaration that 

 it is not good botany. The theory of profes- 

 sional education, that the technical study of 

 a subject follows that of its general field, has 

 not here applied, since, except in a very small 

 minority of cases, such general preparation 

 has been wanting. The teacher in the phar- 

 macy school has been faced by the problem 

 of presenting the technical aspects of his 

 subject to students wholly unprepared for 

 them. If he essays to supply this needed 

 preparation, he encounters a strong protest 

 from a profession that in the main regards 

 schooling as objectionable in itself, and to be 

 tolerated only as the necessary means to a 

 pecuniary end. The chief interest, therefore, 

 that inheres in a new book in this field of 

 activity is the degree of ingenuity manifested 

 by its author in juggling with his subject. If 

 imbued, as most of these authors are, with a 

 genuine ambition to improve existing condi- 

 tions, he will not yield to the temptation to 

 stand aloof, but will endeavor to smuggle more 

 or less of the scientifically valuable into his 

 presentation of the professionally necessary. 



Professor Kraemer's book is more fortunate 

 than those of his predecessors, in coming for- 

 ward at a time of educational renaissance in 



