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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIII. No. 847 



boss and in the amazing concentration of 

 financial and industrial control in the hands 

 of a few men. But that no need of our univer- 

 sity world is keener than the need of an in- 

 crease in the personal importance, dignity and 

 self-assertion of the professor, we are pro- 

 foundly convinced. And it is encouraging to 

 note that on every hand when the issiie arises 

 sentiment is strongly manifested on the right 

 side. The dismissal of Professor Eoss from 

 Leland Stanford found nowhere stronger con- 

 demnation than among men thoroughly out 

 of sympathy with his economic views, but 

 deeply conscious of the importance of pro- 

 fessorial independence. The report recently 

 made to the Carnegie Foundation by a me- 

 chanical engineer was at once recognized 

 everywhere as a reductio ad dbsurdum of the 

 idea that colleges and universities should be 

 conducted on machine-shop principles. The 

 attempt to get the maximum of eificiency at 

 every point by the exercise of supervision and 

 control, even when not carried to that ridicu- 

 lous extreme, is destructive of that vitality 

 upon which the true efficiency of a university 

 depends, and which resides in the inherent 

 personal qualities of its professors. It is the 

 permanence of tenure of professors, the un- 

 disputed dignity and honor of their position, 

 that have made the great universities of the 

 old world what they are. And no substitute 

 for the vitalizing influence of these essential 

 elements can be provided by any amount of 

 supervisory meddling or administrative per- 

 fection. — New York Evening Post. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 

 Conduction of Electricity through Gases and 

 Radioactivity. By E. K. McClung. Phila- 

 delphia, P. Blakiston's Son & Co. Pp. xiv + 

 245. 



Among the many books which have ap- 

 peared upon this subject within the past five 

 years this is the first which attempts to present 

 a definite course of instruction " suitable for 

 the less advanced student or undergraduate." 

 The feature which differentiates it most mark- 

 edly from other books and which gives it its 

 great importance is the presentation of de- 



tailed directions for 125 laboratory experi- 

 ments. The book is in fact built up about 

 these experiments and any student who per- 

 forms them all can scarcely fail to gain a 

 fundamental grasp of the principles of gase- 

 ous conduction and radioactivity. 



It may perhaps be questioned whether many 

 undergraduates will be found who will have 

 either time or ability to perform satisfactorily 

 all of the experiments outlined — in fact, I con- 

 fess to a suspicion that perhaps no one person 

 has ever performed all of them, for I should 

 estimate that that would be a task requiring 

 four or five years of continuous work by a 

 well-trained experimenter. Nevertheless, the 

 book is a great boon for the student who is 

 just beginning research in this field as well as 

 for the instructor who is directing it, for it 

 collects in compact, accessible form a multi- 

 tude of practical points which are essential to 

 successful experimenting, but which each indi- 

 vidual experimenter has heretofore had to 

 " dig out " for himself or else to obtain from 

 some more experienced person by the labori- 

 ous process of individual oral instruction. 



The one danger which will have to be 

 guarded against is that the student by virtue 

 of being crowded too rapidly over the experi- 

 mental ground covered by practically all of 

 the important researches in this field of the 

 past fifteen years does not develop the habit 

 of very superficial experimenting. The book 

 meets an important need and will doubtless 

 receive wide use. E. A. Millikan 



Ryeeson Laboeatoby, 

 Univeesity of Chicago, 

 December 28, 1910 



Die Erndhrung der Wassertiere und der Stojf- 

 haushalt der Oewdsser. Von August PiJT- 

 TER. Jena, Gustav Fischer. 1909. Pp. 

 168. Price M. 5.0. 



Dr. Piitter's researches on the food of 

 aquatic animals have called attention to a 

 source of supply which had been almost or 

 quite disregarded. Some of the views ex- 

 pressed in his earlier papers met with more or 

 less criticism because the results obtained by 

 other investigators were not always in accord 



