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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIII. No. 852 



vestigation of plant physiology, of phyto- 

 pathology, of the study of all things that 

 are related to the welfare of the people of 

 this nation and of the world. Now, if it 

 isn't the university's business to prepare 

 men for research, I should like to know 

 where that business does lie. 



It seems to me we have a double duty — we 

 must provide teachers and we must provide 

 investigators. The university's function 

 is just as much for research as for instruc- 

 tion. The staff should be just as much 

 bound to the doing of research as to the 

 giving of instruction, and just as much 

 bound to train the young people under 

 them for research as to train them for 

 teaching. We need both. We need re- 

 search just as much as instruction. 



Now, is it true, as was stated here, that 

 there is no open door to a career in the 

 study of botany? It was said of law, 

 medicine, etc., that there is an open door. 

 But at the present time we can say to the 

 student, there is also an open door in the 

 study of botany. What does it mean when 

 Dr. Bessey says they can not supply the 

 demand ? We have all of us felt that same 

 thing. It means that, although the re- 

 muneration is not adequate in many direc- 

 tions, still there is the open door toward 

 the earning of one's livelihood at least. 



Now, to take up quite a different matter, 

 and that on the main subject that this dis- 

 cussion opened with: that is, the question 

 as to why we do not have more students 

 becoming professional botanists. That's 

 what the meaning is, I think, of the ques- 

 tion as it was put. Now, the case is not 

 so bad as has been presented here. If you 

 will pardon me, I will review the relations 

 at our own institution. We have no agri- 

 cultural college at the university. We have 

 a first-year class of 200 students — I think 

 194 this year ; we have, besides that, in our 

 classes above the freshman year, 175 stu- 



dents. Now, that proportion does not seem 

 to me to be bad at all. We have our ad- 

 vanced classes with ten students, fifteen 

 students, one class with thirty-two stu- 

 dents, another one, second-year students, 

 or mostly of second-year students, with 

 fifty-five, and to my mind the proportion 

 is not bad and it does not call for any great 

 alarm as to the future. I expect in the 

 future that the proportion of students in 

 the advanced class will tend to increase 

 instead of diminish. I don't see why it 

 should not. 



I find the method of encouraging the 

 promising student to go on with the work 

 is justified. We all make mistakes, but 

 nevertheless we can, with ordinary good 

 judgment, read the ease right four times 

 out of five, and perhaps more often than 

 that, and I have found that by advising 

 with those who attract attention as capable 

 students, one can usually find several who 

 can be led, without very much persuasion, 

 in the direction of becoming professional 

 botanists. One thought that is on a dif- 

 ferent matter. I have been considering 

 for two or three years whether, as teachers 

 of high-school teachers, we ought not to 

 change somewhat — I know it is already 

 done in Minnesota — whether some of us 

 ought not to change our methods so that 

 the perspective of the high-school teacher 

 is brought more into relation with his sub- 

 ject matter as it occurs in nature. Of 

 course a great deal can be done by green- 

 house study; but after all that does not 

 take altogether the place of field study, 

 and I believe we must draw these teachers 

 to field study so that when they go out to 

 teach botany in the schools they may show 

 their pupils the way by which they can in 

 themselves carry the work further than it 

 is carried in the schools — the high schools 

 and lower grades. 



I would like to see a set of statistics from 



