246 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLII. No. 1077 



institution, and this year when an increase 

 was asked, representatives of the state in both 

 its legislative and executive branches charged 

 with the task of preparing the budget for 

 maintaining the state institutions during the 

 ensuing biennium visited the institution, 

 went over with the scientific staff and busi- 

 ness manager in considerable particularity the 

 work being prosecuted, and were unequivocally 

 assured that the problems under investigation 

 are all first and foremost scientific, and that 

 only some of them might be expected to have 

 a money value to the state. 



Great emphasis was, however, laid by the 

 men of the institution on the two facts that 

 all increase of knowledge of nature is capable 

 of being made useful to the people of the 

 commonwealth in one way and another, either 

 for their enlightenment or pleasure or mate- 

 rial gain; and that the institution holds itself 

 under as much obligation to make its discov- 

 eries utilizable in some form, as it does to 

 prosecute the investigations themselves. 



The attempt has always been made to im- 

 press upon officials and public that this insti- 

 tution is one in which private benefaction 

 wishes to join with state benefaction for 

 serving the community through research in 

 pure science. And it is pleasant to record 

 that the officers of the state government have 

 been found to be at least not less responsive 

 to the appeals for financial aid than have been 

 the president and regents of the university. 



Mr. John F. Neylan, chairman of the state 

 board of control has taken the pains to ex- 

 pressly state that the placing of the institu- 

 tion's item specifically in the allotments to 

 the university, which allotment is in turn a 

 permanent element in the state budget of 

 running expenses, should be understood to 

 mean that the state accepts the institution 

 with its avowed commitment to research as a 

 definite and perpetual charge upon the state. 

 And from Mr. H. W. Wright, chairman of the 

 ways and means committee of the last as- 

 sembly, comes the declaration : " We recognize 

 that the state must support institutions of 

 this kind." 



From what California has done toward 



maintaining the Lick Observatory through a 

 considerable term of years, and is now doing 

 for the Scripps Institution, the conclusion 

 seems justified that the state is definitely com- 

 mitted to the principle of state aid to scien- 

 tific research, even though such research has 

 no direct and primary industrial , aims. In 

 discussing these matters with officials, I 

 stoutly contend that in the long run about the 

 most telling criterion of success of popular 

 government will be the extent to which it con- 

 tributes to the highest development, spiritual 

 and physical, of the naturally best endowed 

 persons who live under and who participate in 

 such government. The facts and reasonings 

 that can be presented in support of this propo- 

 sition, particularly those touching the question 

 of leadership in scientific discovery, seem to 

 appeal with special force to men grappling 

 earnestly with the practical problems of gov- 

 ernment for a modern community. 



Experience strongly inclines me to the view 

 that the serious derelection of our national and 

 several state governments in the support of 

 scientific investigation is chargeable quite as 

 much to scientific men themselves as to govern- 

 ment officers and the people at large. 



Wm. E. Eitter 



La Jolla, CALiroENiA 



A REPLY TO DR. LITTLE 



If we are ever able to discover what part 

 hybridization plays in evolution, it is im- 

 measurably more valuable to find out the be- 

 havior of natural species rather than of forms 

 created in the laboratory under more or less 

 artificial conditions, and which are never 

 found outside the laboratory. This effort to 

 place hybridization among evolutionary causes 

 has been one of the chief aims of students of 

 heredity. 



My repetition of the standard cross between 

 grays and albinos to discover the behavior of 

 coat color in mice was carried on with wild 

 housemice and not with artificial laboratory 

 grays. 



It is still open to question whether the wild 

 housemouse (,Mus musculiis') inevitably fur- 



