Mabch 31, 1911] 



SCIENCE 



493 



professor say that a young teacher should not 

 get married, because the profession does not 

 offer a living for two. Is this the price a man 

 must pay for learning? Is it worth while? 

 Does it lead to scholarship? 



The assistant professor with a family can 

 not, on $1,500 a year, get the necessary litera- 

 ture and books, he can not attend meetings at 

 a distance, or travel and gather knowledge 

 and inspiration from others of his kind. Does 

 this lead to scholarship? Is it an inspiration 

 for a university fellow to teach at $1,000 a 

 year in a secondary school? Does this indi- 

 cate that the market is not overstocked? 



I raise a question as to whether " it is the 

 professor that needs endowment " if we are to 

 produce scholars. One reason there are not 

 more scholars in America is because the enter- 

 ing inducements are not sufficient. Men pre- 

 pare for the teaching profession and then 

 turn aside for more remunerative work. In 

 the zoological laboratory at Columbia Univer- 

 sity last year there were five students about 

 ready to come up for the Ph.D. degree. Of 

 these, three signified their intention of aban- 

 doning their plans of following the teaching 

 profession. It is the young men who abandon 

 the call of scholarship. They are the ones 

 who need encouragement. It is the getting 

 of more men into the profession that will pro- 

 duce scholars as well as helping those already 

 in it. From the many will come the few real 

 scholars that the nation can produce and these 

 will be the result of heredity as well as of 

 training. 



It has been claimed that the greatest intel- 

 lects in America are among the business men. 

 This may be partly true. If the inducements 

 of the teaching profession had been greater 

 some of these men would, doubtless, be leading 

 scholars to-day. 



Dr. Patten's hopes of a promising man are 

 that he will settle down on $1,500 a year, for- 

 getting that he has a family to provide for, 

 that he needs literature, travel and association 

 with others. I can not forget seeing a uni- 

 versity instructor spending his vacation wheel- 

 ing a wheelbarrow. This is not going to 

 produce scholars. It produces assistant pro- 



fessors without enthusiasm or inspiration. 

 The teaching profession is bad enough. Why 

 make it worse? 



The idea that " no one should have the title 

 of professor until it was fully earned " is good. 

 But he should be supported while he is at- 

 tempting to earn it. If this were done more 

 generously than at present more men would 

 make the attempt. Poverty does not offer a 

 smooth road to learning. 



0. V. Burke 



Stanford Universitt 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 

 Human Embryology — Eeibel and Mall. Writ- 

 ten by C. E. Baedeen, Wisconsin; H. M. 

 Evans, Baltimore; W. Felix, Zurich; C. 

 Grosser, Prague; F. Keibel, Freiburg, i. 

 Br.; F. T. Lewis, Boston; W. H. Lewis, 

 Baltimore; J. P. McMurrich, Toronto; F. 

 P. Mall, Baltimore; 0. S. Minot, Boston; 



F. PiNKUS, Berlin; F. E. Sabin, Baltimore; 



G. L. Streeter, Michigan; J. Tandler, 

 Vienna; E. Zuckerkandl, Vienna. Edited 

 by Franz Keibel and Franklin P. Mall. 

 In two volumes. Volume I. 550 pp., with 

 423 illustrations. Philadelphia and Lon- 

 don, J. B. Lippincott Company. 1910. 

 The publication of this work is worthy of 



very special notice, for it may well be said to 

 mark an epoch of accomplishment in the 

 study of human embryology, while on the 

 other hand it furnishes exceptionally numer- 

 ous suggestions of many problems yet to be 

 solved, with the most promising lines of at- 

 tack. 



In the introduction. Professor Keibel brings 

 out vividly, after an excellent historical re- 

 view, the conditions which led up to the in- 

 auguration of the modern study of human 

 embryology by Wm. His. It is fortunate that 

 the great volume of these studies which have 

 been accumulated under this inspiration 

 should now be so fully reviewed and made 

 available by the cooperation of these students 

 of his. The plan of His for an extended ex- 

 position of human embryology is thus finally 

 accomplished under the leadership of Keibel 

 and Mall on two sides of the Atlantic. 



