October 16, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



547 



bers are very likely about the same in each 

 case. Their faculty and alumni connections 

 are similar; their college activity has been 

 about equal. Their members are drawn from 

 about the same localities, that is, the majority 

 of their members come from down state com- 

 munities. If the freshmen pledged to these 

 four chapters were lined up it would be highly 

 difficult to point out to which chapter the 

 different men were pledged. But in matters 

 of scholarship there have been many big differ- 

 ences during the ten semesters. The reason 

 for these differences is without doubt in the 

 difference in chapter management. Only in 

 this way could one explain why freshmen so 

 much alike on entering should make up chap- 

 ters so different in scholarship. 



A member of Sigma Chi contends that their 

 greatest handicap has been in the weakness of 

 the junior and senior classes year in and year 

 out. A comparison of these four chapters on 

 this point shows the following results : 



In a chapter where the upper classes are 

 weak the work is doubled ; more freshmen must 

 be initiated and trained to fill up the gaps, 

 and at the same time there are fewer upper- 

 classmen available for developing the under- 

 classmen and for furnishing efficient leader- 

 ship. Then, too, the presence around the 

 house of a number of men who expect to 

 drop out at the end of the semester without 

 trying to complete their courses is very de- 

 moralizing upon the work of all other members 

 of the chapter. I have no doubt that many 

 chapters could strengthen themselves very 

 greatly by building up a tradition that the 

 members of the chapter should feel an obliga- 

 tion to stay in college until graduation. 



Another conclusion that must inevitably be 

 drawn is that the fraternity upperclassmen 

 are open to a charge that fraternity life en- 

 •genders in the members a spirit of content- 



ment with a grade of work somewhat lower 

 than that of which the men are capable. The 

 freshmen seem to be holding up their end 

 pretty well; but the upperclassmen fail to live 

 up to the promises of the freshmen year. This 

 charge is really serious, and the fraternities 

 will have to meet it sooner or later. State 

 universities are too expensively equipped to 

 allow any of the students to do less than their 

 best without damaging the interests of the 

 citizens of the state. These universities, too, 

 are so peculiarly prepared to give a kind of 

 training that the students may get nowhere 

 else that fraternity men may not say that they 

 are justified in sacrificing a part of the benefit 

 of this training in order to get other kinds of 

 training which, in most cases, can be obtained 

 elsewhere. By bringing their average up to 

 that of the general university average for men 

 the fraternities may show that they are not 

 guilty of the charge that they tend to develop 

 a happy mediocrity in their members toward 

 matters of scholarship. 



Arthur Ray Warnock 

 Univeesitt or Illinois 



THEODORE NICHOLAS GILL 



Many scientific associates and friends' of 

 Dr. Theodore Nicholas Gill, who died in 

 Washington City at noon on September 25, 

 1914, met on the following day at the U. S. Na- 

 tional Museum to do honor to the memory of 

 their deceased colleague. Among those who 

 spoke were Dr. Richard Rathbun, Acting 

 Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Mr. 

 Leonhard Stejneger, Dr. L. 0. Howard, Dr. 

 Paul Bartsch, Dr. Frank Baker, and Mr. Paul 

 Brockett of the Museum staff, as well as Dr. 

 Hugh M. Smith, Commissioner of Fisheries. 

 A tribute expressing the sorrow attendant on 

 his death and the great loss to science in gen- 

 eral and the Smithsonian Institution and 

 National Museum in particular was adopted 

 at the meeting. 



Dr. Theodore Gill, as he was best known, 

 was the son of James Darrell and Elizabeth 

 Vosburgh Gill, and was bom in New York 

 City on March 21, 183Y. His early education 



