746 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXV. No. 645 



If it is conceded that an exhibit for the 

 specialist is of practically no educational 

 value to the public — is to it primarily a col- 

 lection of meaningless curios — then it is 

 patent that museums drawing largely on 

 public funds can not honestly adopt such an 

 arrangement, but must follow one that will 

 give a fair equivalent for value received. 



Museums that may be privately endowed so 

 as to be independent of public funds may, of 

 course, adopt any method they choose; but it 

 would appear to be a foolish waste of energy 

 and money to throw open to the general public 

 a specialists' museum. 



The college student is not here considered 

 because his own institution makes special pro- 

 vision for him. 



Looking from the standpoint of popular 

 education at the ethnological exhibits of the 

 American Museum, I have been greatly pleased 

 to note the decided advance that the last few 

 years has shown in the matter of arrangement. 

 I can imagine a man of average education, 

 with no special knowledge of the Eskimo or the 

 Plains Indian, viewing those exhibits for an 

 hour and coming away with a fair general idea 

 of the peoples represented, such as he could 

 not possibly have acquired in many hours 

 under former conditions. This man will 

 represent more than ninety per cent, of the 

 visitors to the museum. He it is who is pay- 

 ing a considerable proportion of the expenses 

 of the museum and now is getting his dues. 

 At the same time I presume that the specialist 

 can be amply cared for in this department, as 

 I know to be the case in certain zoological 

 branches. 



I hope that there will be no backward step 

 to the condition of storage exhibition with, 

 to the public, its meaningless repetition of 

 specimens that have little or no information 

 to convey. 



Henry L. Ward 

 Public Museum, Milwaukee, 

 April 15, 1907 



MAGAZINE SCIENCE 



The science in the magazines is not always 

 bad. Much of it is not only most illuminating 

 to the non-specialist mind (including in the 



term all those who are specialists in some one 

 subject, but whose college knowledge of all 

 other subjects is wholly antiquated), but is 

 also of the highest order of authority. For 

 instance, the March number of the Century 

 contains a very important article by Professor 

 Hugo de Vries on the work of Luther Bur- 

 bank, and in the May number of the same 

 magazine there appeared one by Professor 

 Stratton on railroad signaling in connection 

 with color-blindness. But the article on color 

 in the number for April belongs to the class 

 of the antiquated and the non-scientific to a 

 degree that has become, fortunately, most 

 unusual. Criticism of an article like this is 

 not worth while, but one can indicate its 

 character by a few quotations. We are told 

 that " two tuning forks of discordant rates of 

 vibration, set in action close together, will 

 make no sound " (as if vibrations of exactly 

 opposite phase were the only ones that give 

 discordant notes) ; and that " it is possible 

 that the harmonies of color waves may some 

 day be reduced to mathematical tabulation." 

 The writer believes in the ' capacity of brain 

 cells to note rhythmic variations ' of various 

 degrees of speed; he affirms that " the brain 

 receives impressions in the form of waves of 

 vibration," and also that " two kinds of light 

 waves are emitted from all objects, color 

 waves and white waves." 



After this one is not surprised to find that 

 he thinks there are red-blind individuals who 

 see green, and green-blind individuals who 

 see red, and that, in fact, all the knowledge- 

 about color that has been gained in the last 

 twenty years or so is terra incognita to him.^ 

 It seems a pity that three full pages of bright 

 colored illustration should be wasted in propa- 

 gating error. And this is an article which 

 the New York Evening Post took the trouble,, 

 upon two separate occasions, to praise! It is 

 said that the Youth's Companion employs a 

 reputable scientist whose sole duty is to see 

 that no patently false science, or other mat- 

 ter of fact, appears in its columns. It would 

 be wise if less modest journals followed the 

 same plan. 



Christine Ladd Franklin 



Johns Hopkins University 



