June 5, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



901 



receiving its information from him alone — is 

 subversive of true university ideals. If all 

 American universities should adopt such 

 methods, we must look elsevchere for our best 

 moral, social and intellectual life. If certain 

 institutions only follow them, they will find 

 it increasingly difficult to fill their chairs with 

 men of the best type and indeed to maintain 

 themselves as universities in the proper sense. 

 You say : " Our professors have nothing to do 

 with the hiring, continuing or dismissing of 

 professors or students." This may be your 

 law and policy, but it is not true as a matter 

 of fact. There is a developing group con- 

 sciousness among scientific and university 

 men, which will make it difficult to fill prop- 

 erly a chair made vacant by methods that they 

 do not approve. 



Very truly yours, 



J. McK. Cattell 



TBE ROCKEFELLER INSTITUTE FOR 

 MEDICAL RESEARCH 



Mr. John D. Rockefeller has offered to 

 give $500,000 for a hospital to be erected in 

 connection with the Rockefeller Institute. It 

 is understood that the necessary endowment 

 will be provided when the hospital is ready. 

 The letter from Mr. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., 

 to Dr. L. Emmet Holt, secretary of the board 

 of directors, is as follows: 



Understanding that in the judgment of your 

 board a hospital building is desirable in order to 

 facilitate the work of research for which the 

 institute was founded, my father will provide for 

 the purchase of land and the erection and equip- 

 ment of a suitable hospital building, whatever 

 amount may be necessary, up to a total of $500,- 

 000, payments to be made as the work progresses. 



My father thus enlarges the scope and possibili- 

 ties of the institute in grateful recognition of the 

 services of Dr. Simon Flexner, as director, ren- 

 dered in those orderly and progressive scientific 

 investigations, which, sanctioned and encouraged 

 by your board, and aided by learned associates 

 and assistants, led him at length to the discovery 

 of a cure for epidemic cerebro-spinal meningitis. 



celebration of the centennial of the birth of 

 Charles Darwin (February 12, 1809) and the 

 semicentennial of the publication of the 

 "Origin of Species" (November 24, 1859). 

 The program so far as arranged is as follows: 



Introductory remarks by the president of the 

 association, T. C. Chamberlin, University of Chi- 

 cago. 



" Natural Selection from the Standpoint of 

 Zoology," by Edward B. Poulton, Oxford Uni- 

 versity. 



" Natural Selection from the Standpoint of 

 Botany," by John M. Coulter, University of 

 Chicago. 



"The Direct Effect of Environment'," by D. T. 

 MacDougal, Carnegie Institution of Washington. 



" Mutation," by C. B. Davenport, Carnegie In- 

 stitution of Washington. 



" The Behavior of Unit Characters iu Hered- 

 ity," by W. E. Castle, Harvard University. 



" The Isolation Factor," by David Starr Jordan, 

 Stanford University. 



" Adaptation," by C. H. Eigenmann, Indiana 

 University. 



" The Bearing of Recent Cytological Studies on 

 Heredity and Evolution," by E. B. Wilson, Co- 

 lumbia University. 



" Evolution and Psychology," by G. Stanley 

 Hall, Clark University. 



" Recent Paleontological Evidence of Evolu- 

 tion," by Henry Fairfield Osborn, Columbia Uni- 

 versity. 



In the evening a dinner will be given, after 

 which certain addresses of a more general 

 nature will be given. It is proposed to print 

 these addresses in a volume to appear during 

 the centennial year. 



DABWm CELEBRATION 

 The American Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science will devote one day during 

 convocation week next at Baltimore to the 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS 

 At the meeting of the American Medical 

 Association held this week at Chicago the 

 following distinguished foreign men of sci- 

 ence are announced to present papers : Dr. A. 

 E. Schaefer, professor of physiology in the 

 University of Edinburgh; Dr. C. E. Beevor, 

 last year president of the London Neurological 

 Society; Dr. E. T. Collins, lecturer on 

 ophthalmology at the Charing Cross Hospital 

 and Medical School; Dr. August Martin, pro- 

 fessor of gynecology at Greifswald, and Dr. 

 E. F. Sauerbach, professor of surgery at Mar- 

 burg. 



