Maech 6, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



379 



recently also the National Academy of Sci- 

 ences, through a special committee, has 

 taken steps to organize a definite plan for 

 cooperative research upon the equilibrium 

 conditions of chemical reactions. A simi- 

 lar plan might be followed with advantage 

 by any or all of our special societies. 

 Speaking for my own subject, there is no 

 reason why the American Physiological So- 

 ciety should not, through its council or by 

 means of special committees, plan out work 

 of a general character and enlist the co- 

 operation of selected investigators. There 

 are a number of questions in physiology 

 which bear upon public health or social 

 conditions which might be studied system- 

 atically in this way. There is an important 

 field also in the determination of physio- 

 logical constants and the standardization of 

 methods and apparatus which might be 

 worked better by this method than by the 

 accidental cooperation of individual inves- 

 tigators. There can be no doubt that such 

 an effort would be well worth making even 

 if it fell short of the full measure of suc- 

 cess hoped for. Some data of fundamental 

 importance would be obtained mth a 

 degree of completeness and certainty which 

 could hardly be reached by any other 

 method. There is another consideration of 

 subsidiary importance which is worthy of 

 passing notice in this connection. It is, I 

 believe, a matter of common knowledge that 

 in every department of science there are 

 many able workers who remain unpro- 

 ductive because of a certain lack of initia- 

 tive, or because they waste their time and 

 opportunities in ill-directed efforts. Quite 

 often these workers are the very ones who 

 have had the most careful training in 

 technique and are the best qualified to ac- 

 complish difficult research work. If under 

 the influence of some central organizing 

 force they could be enlisted in a systematic 

 campaign of work, their training would be 



utilized for the benefit of science and to 

 their own best interests. There is another 

 class of workers, to be sure, who are so 

 constructed temperamentally that they 

 never accomplish their best work except as 

 free lances— for them cooperation would be 

 irksome and deadening. In any such plan 

 of work as that contemplated some dis- 

 cretion in the selection of workers would 

 have to be exercised by those charged with 

 the general direction. I am convinced, 

 however, that an earnest persistent effort 

 to organize cooperative work is well worth 

 making on the part of all of our scientific 

 societies. It goes without saying that a 

 voluntary cooperation of this character 

 would meet with many partial failures; 

 much that was initiated might fail to run 

 a completed course, owing mainly to the 

 lack of a compelling sense of obligation on 

 the part of those entrusted with the details 

 of the work, but on the principle that half 

 a loaf is better than none I believe that we 

 should all do well to follow the example set 

 us by the astronomers. Another source to 

 which we might look for aid in developing 

 and testing the cooperative method is found 

 in those large scientific bodies which have 

 a certain amount of money at their disposal 

 for the encouragement of research. In 

 some cases the money controlled by these 

 societies has been given for specific pur- 

 poses and would, therefore, be difficult to 

 administer in the way here suggested. 

 More frequently, however, the funds are 

 available for the promotion of scientific 

 knowledge in general by means of investi- 

 gations. As a rule such funds are dis- 

 bursed on the principle of competition 

 rather than of cooperation. They are used 

 to subsidize individual researches, and the 

 work accomplished, however good it may be 

 in the single piece, is scattered over a wide 

 field and lacks the effectiveness which 

 might be obtained by intelligent super- 



