January 19, 1906.] 



SCIENCE. 



97 



cessfully undertake any particular investigation, 

 and the extensive facilities of the institute in the 

 way of working spacBj apparatus, workshop appli- 

 ances, skilled observers and mechanics are placed 

 at the latter's disposal. 



This might mal\;e it appear that all test- 

 ing work from that time on was to be done 

 by the institute as an institution, but such 

 was not the case. No other than personal 

 reports have been issued by the professors 

 Avho have undertaken the work, and in 

 every ease the professors themselves have 

 been entirely responsible for the payment 

 of all expenses connected with the tests. 

 In many cases the expenses of tests are 

 quite large, and the payment of these must 

 be secured either by obtaining a retainer or 

 deposit from the parties for whom the 

 work is to be done, or the professor making 

 the test must run the risk of having to pay 

 these expenses himself should the parties 

 for whom he is doing the work fail to meet 

 their obligations. This looking after the 

 financial end of the problem is an essential 

 one, as it gives the professors experience 

 on the commercial as well as the engineer- 

 ing side of the work. 



It has been claimed that the professors 

 of an engineering college should not do 

 work in the practical field, as this interferes 

 with the consulting engineers who depend 

 for their livelihood on just the sort of work 

 that would be apt to be undertaken at a 

 college. This is a very narrow view to 

 take of the matter, and as far as my own 

 pereonal experience is concerned, I can 

 testify to the fact that much of the work 

 undertaken in connection with my college 

 duties has been done for consulting experts. 

 The day is past when there can be a strict 

 line drawn between the work of the con- 

 sulting engineer and that of the professor 

 who teaches in the same field. The ideal 

 professor in a given line should be able to 

 take up the work of the consulting engineer 

 in that line, and the ideal consulting engi- 

 neer shotild possess enough technical kn6Wl- 



edge to fit him for being a professor. There 

 should be no jealousy, but rather a bond 

 of friendship in that the fundamentals 

 which each should master are the same. 

 D. S. Jacobus. 



Stevens Institute of Technology. 



ADDRESS BEFORE THE CENTRAL 

 BOTANISTS^ 



Ti-iE opening of the year 1902 was 

 marked by the assembling in Chicago of 

 the American Society of Naturalists, an 

 association based on strict professional re- 

 quirements for membership, which for rea- 

 sons of expediency had limited its meetings 

 to the eastern part of the country— a 

 limitation specially set aside for the pur- 

 pose of holding this Chicago meeting. 

 AVith the Society of Naturalists had become 

 affiliated a considerable nvimber of equally 

 strong professional organizations devoted 

 to branches of nature study. All were 

 largely indebted for their existence to the 

 need that every student and teacher feels 

 of the stimulus of personal contact with 

 his peers in the work to which he is de- 

 voting his life. 



The great summer gatherings of the 

 American Association for the Advancement 

 of Science, .with its greater variety of in- 

 terests and less strictly limited membership, 

 had seemed not to give opportvinity for this 

 contact in the way desired, and the general 

 and special bodies of naturalists, a large 

 part of whom were also members of the 

 association, had provided for meetings 

 siich as they desired in the short college 

 recess of the Christmas season. Into this 

 recess, lengthened for the purpose by a 

 considerable number of colleges, the Amer- 

 ican Association had deliberately moved 

 its own meeting, in the hope that the active 

 workers of the entire country, in every 

 field of science, might find it possible to 

 meet together as a single great body, impos- 



' Presidential address at the Ann Arbor meet- 

 ing, December 28, 1905. 



