May 27, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



817 



faculty of one of our large universities — 

 who was prosecuting some field work in 

 another department of science. I had not 

 before met him, but was familiar with his 

 worli, and I was rather surprised in the 

 course of conversation to find that he had 

 not the doctor's degree. As he was a young 

 man (men are sometimes compelled by 

 circumstances to take to the harness be- 

 fore they have entirely equipped them- 

 selves) and not in what might be called a 

 permanent life position, I was rather sur- 

 prised that he had not this degree, and 

 when I put a question to him about it, I 

 found that the feeling which has been 

 expressed here in several shapes was very 

 strongly fixed in his mind— that the doc- 

 tor's degree was hardly worth having, and 

 to him it took this shape: That he was an 

 investigator; he was making his mark; he 

 was getting along; he knew how to do re- 

 search work ; he was already getting recog- 

 nition as an accomplished investigator; 

 and it was hardly to his interest to make 

 certain sacrifices of money and the dis- 

 posal of his time that would be necessary 

 in order to get a diploma that would en- 

 able him to write Ph.D. after his name. 

 He said : " I have students in my own de- 

 partment who are going to be Ph.D.'s in a 

 short time, but who, I know well enough, 

 will never do a piece of work that I have 

 not thought up and that they do not carry 

 out under my plan. They will get Ph.D. — 

 and of what use is that designation to me ? " 

 This opens one of the very important 

 questions which I hope may come into the 

 discussion this afternoon — that of securing 

 recognition of those professional attain- 

 ments which distinguish the man who has 

 gone into the field of science from the man 

 who has taken the equipment and bought 

 the armor and weapons but has never gone 

 any farther. And it may be that there is 

 in the future the possibility that the de- 

 gree which is sometimes conferred for sci- 



entific work, doctor of science, which I 

 hold— which I should be sorry to see go, 

 but which is fast becoming entirely ob- 

 solete as an earned degree, may be con- 

 ferred as recognizing the successful in- 

 vestigator in science as distinguished from 

 the gentlemen to whom Professor Cattell 

 would give the degree of LL.D.— almost the 

 one honorary degree that is open to-day 

 for those whose names appear in '"\\Tio's 

 Who.' 



The next speaker, who, though not an 

 active college president, has had ample 

 experience as a college president, and at 

 the same time, like all of the speakers, is 

 a distinguished investigator, is Professor 

 Coulter, of the University of Chicago. 



Professor Coulter : 



I believe that this subject, discussed in 

 a meeting of scientific people or those who 

 have scientific inclinations, is likely to get 

 the sort of handling it would not get any- 

 where else. We are really somewhat out 

 of sympathy with a great many of the no- 

 tions that cluster about these degrees, and 

 in our scientific training we seem to have 

 gotten away from any sentiment that be- 

 longs to them; and still it remains a fact 

 that most scientific men, in the back of 

 their minds at least, think a great deal 

 about them. Therefore, we are really dis- 

 cussing not what might be called desirable, 

 but that which is a fact. I am free to say 

 that this discussion to me is the considera- 

 tion of how we shall regulate an evil that 

 is among us, but which we are not yet 

 ready to abandon entirely. 



By this preface I wish it understood that 

 I am not favoring degrees, but some ra- 

 tional way of conferring them. 



The first point to be made in the dis- 

 cussion, and apparently the chief storm 

 center thus far, is in connection with the 

 bachelor's degree. The old contests to 

 which President Jordan referred in his 



