448 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XL. No. 1030 



degree, eacli aiming to present a different point 

 of view or a novel method of attacking evolu- 

 tionary problems. Darwin miglit in that case 

 have lived to see his pupils holding numerous 

 professorships in widely scattered schools to 

 the glory and delight of his university; the 

 grateful pupils might even have honored him 

 with a Festschrift on forty different and wholly 

 unrelated subjects — ^but the world would still 

 hold the theory of special creation ! 



Our universities need carefully to consider 

 whether they are really fostering research in 

 multiplying " research courses " in their grad- 

 uate schools and making larger and larger 

 bids for graduate students. In the interest of 

 genuine research within the universities it is 

 important that they with their estimated 

 hundred millions annual income should not 

 absorb the exclusively research institutions 

 with their paltry two millions estimated annual 

 income. It is important that the latter type of 

 institution should persist, if only to point out 

 the difference between giving all one's time 

 to research and giving all one's time to train- 

 ing for research those who either are incapable 

 of it or are never going to have time for it 

 themselves, but will only repeat the endless 

 process of getting others ready for it. 



But it has been objected and wiU be objected 

 again — If the university does not foster inci- 

 pient research by training beginners, there wiU 

 soon be no trained investigators. Is this true ? 

 Is it true, I wonder, in the ease of astronomy, 

 the oldest of sciences, the one which is almost 

 never used as a stepping stone to the doctorate 

 in a graduate school? Is there a dearth of 

 workers there, of adequately trained and com- 

 petent ones? Astronomy has certainly not 

 ceased to advance in our time. 



Should the university then abandon re- 

 search? By no means, but it should cease to 

 deceive itself as to what research is. It is not 

 offering " Courses in Research " or conferring 

 doctorates or publishing numerous papers or 

 even building laboratories. 



Many of our universities already have at- 

 tached to them genuine research establishments 

 which are making important contributions to 

 knowledge. As a rule they receive no students 



and confer no degrees. They are invariably 

 endowed; otherwise they would sooner or later 

 be dragged into the whirlpool of teaching and 

 forced to offer courses and degrees as bait to 

 prospective students and would thus be turned 

 aside from intensive and effective investiga- 

 tion. Some such establishments, however, 

 have other functions which interfere more or 

 less with investigation, such as exhibition and 

 demonstration in museums and gardens. 



The university is an entirely suitable place, 

 in many respects the hesi place, for a research 

 establishment; but when such establishments 

 are founded in connection with a university, 

 their purpose for research should be made very 

 clear and their administration should be kept 

 very distinct from both teaching and the 

 demonstration of discoveries to the public. 

 "W. E. Castle 



August 25, 1914 



CHONTAL, SERI AND TUMAN 



A RECENT reexamination of the available 

 evidence bearing on Brinton's old but not 

 generally accepted finding of a genetic rela- 

 tionship between the Chontal (Tequistlateean), 

 Seri and Yuman Indian languages, confirms 

 his judgment positively. Chontal and Seri 

 being Tuman, are Hokan; and the Hokan 

 family therefore now has a knovm extent of 

 over 2,000 miles on the Pacific coast of 

 America. So definite are the reserablances 

 furnished by Chontal and Seri that they help 

 to elucidate problems in the Hokan languages 

 of northern California. The results of the 

 study are now awaiting publication. 



A. L. Keoeber 



September 8, 1914 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 

 The Microscopy of Drinhing Water. By 

 George Chandler Whipple, Gordon McKay 

 Professor of Sanitary Engineering, Har- 

 vard University and Massachusetts Institute 

 of Technology. Third edition, rewritten 

 and enlarged. New York, John Wiley & 

 Sons. 1914. xxi + 405. 

 The scientific study of the microscopical or- 

 ganisms in their relation to potable waters 



