March 6, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



381 



laboratories connected with academic in- 

 stitutions. If our specially endowed in- 

 stitutions simply follow the same general 

 plan they will add nothing distinctive to 

 the character of the scientific activity of 

 the country. It will be as though one or 

 more new universities had been organized, 

 and the present opportunities and methods 

 had been somewhat extended — a chance 

 for a few more investigators to try their 

 powers under conditions not materially 

 different from those already existing in 

 many laboratories. If, on the contrary, 

 the energies and appliances of these insti- 

 tutions were directed toward a cooperative 

 concentration of effort, then indeed, they 

 would fill a need not now efficiently met by 

 any of our existing scientific foundations. 

 There seems to be no reason why the direct- 

 ors in such institutions should not exercise 

 the power of planning a campaign of work 

 in which all the talent and training of the 

 workers under their control should be 

 brought to bear upon a systematic con- 

 tinuous investigation from several sides of 

 problems of importance. The policy that 

 seems to have been adopted by the Carnegie 

 Institution, of applying its funds to the 

 creation and maintenance of special labora- 

 tories, such as the laboratory of nutrition 

 and the Desert Botanical Laboratory is a 

 welcome step in this direction. "Well 

 equipped and well directed, they will ac- 

 cumulate data of the greatest importance 

 and will fulfill a function which our teach- 

 ing laboratories, by their organization, are 

 unfitted to exercise. Laboratories of this 

 character so organized that their forces 

 can be coordinated now upon one problem 

 and again upon another constitute a kind 

 of machinery which is at present lacking in 

 our scientific workshop and from which 

 results of the greatest value may reasonably 

 be expected. William H. Howell 



The Johns Hopkins Uniyeesitt 



The topic before us for discussion per- 

 mits of a great variety of interpretation. 

 It would be feasible and interesting to 

 discuss the possibilities of cooperative en- 

 deavor on the part of university depart- 

 ments of psychology on the one hand, and 

 the medical departments of mental and 

 nervous pathology on the other. Such 

 cooperative enterprises have already been 

 given a trial in one form or another both 

 in this country and abroad, and so far as I 

 am aware, with general satisfaction to all 

 concerned. A much further development, 

 however, is practicable, and one of the first 

 steps in this direction, already taken by 

 the more progressive medical schools, con- 

 sists in the requirement that medical stu- 

 dents should familiarize themselves with 

 the rudiments at least of modern psychol- 

 ogy. In my judginent this movement is 

 but an expression of the most obvious com- 

 mon sense and I welcome it as such ; but I 

 am sure that much remains for the psy- 

 chologist to do even on this level of co- 

 operation in supplying the medical student 

 with a selected material peculiarly appro- 

 priate to his needs. 



We might also discuss the possibilities of 

 cooperation between the departments of 

 neurology and psychology. This is a hobby 

 which I am glad to ride at any time. 

 Again we might with advantage consider 

 the possibilities of cooperative division of 

 the field of study dealing with animal 

 behavior as between the zoologists and the 

 animal psychologists. But it is clear that 

 within the limits of time at my disposal 

 any such discussions would monopolize my 

 part of this program and at the end find 

 us with only one of many equally important 

 groups of relations examined. I have there- 

 fore chosen to devote myself to a consider- 

 ation of the special demands which psy- 

 chology has to make upon several of the 

 biological sciences and to a brief statement' 



