July 28, 1911] 



SCIENCE 



12i 



THE METHODS OF A VETERAN INVESTIGATOR AND 

 TEACHER 



To THE Editor of Science : It occurs to me 

 that some of my scientific colleagues may be 

 interested in the following statement of what 

 I regard as the most important educational 

 and scientific outcome of fifty years of study 

 and forty-two of teaching: (1) All parts of a 

 given animal should receive one and the same 

 serial number. (2) Slips should be used for 

 promptly recording new observations, refer- 

 ences, ideas, and all data (e. g., localities, 

 donors, modes of preparation) not ascertain- 

 able from the specimens themselves. (3) 

 Beginners should be taught correct methods 

 by explicit directions. (4) Before lecturing 

 upon a species or a group there should be 

 shown a specimen or a representation of one. 

 (5) In all composition the following should 

 be sought in the order named: clearness, con- 

 sistency, correctness, conciseness, complete- 

 ness. (6) Published errors should be 

 promptly corrected. (7) All natural classifi- 

 cation is dichotomous. (8) For the study of 

 the structure, development, succession and 

 relationships of vertebrates the best group to 

 begin with is the Selachians, the sharks and 

 rays; if several forms can be studied the 

 first should be — and if but one, that one 

 should be — the acanth or " horned dogfish," 

 Squalus acanthias. (9) The objective study 

 of the brain should begin in the primary 

 school; the pupil himself should expose, draw 

 and dissect the brain of the acanth shark; 

 with successive appropriate changes as to 

 forms and methods the high school graduate 

 should have gained as much real knowledge 

 of the human brain as is now possessed by 

 the average graduate in medicine. 



Burt G. "Wilder 

 Cornell Univeesitt, 

 June 20, 1911 



QUOTATIONS 



the department of agriculture AND 

 dr. WILEY 



It begins to look pretty clear that the real 

 problem before the President in connection 



with the Wiley affair is how to let it drop with 

 the least amount of disturbance and incon- 

 venience. This does not imply that he will de- 

 cide the matter without looking into its mer- 

 its. His decision will not be made until he 

 has personally examined the record. But it 

 requires neither a gift of divination nor a 

 preternatural command of legal intricacies to 

 predict with a great degree of confidence that 

 the recommendation made by the personnel 

 board of the Department of Agriculture, and 

 approved by Attorney-General Wickersham, 

 will not be followed by Mr. Taft. Every day 

 that has passed since it was made has'strength- 

 ened not only the belief that the punishment 

 proposed was utterly disproportionate to the 

 alleged offence — even supposing that offence 

 to have been of precisely the character as- 

 serted — ^but also the impression that the Pres- 

 ident is quite as well aware of this as any- 

 body. The Washington news, in papers of all 

 shades of opinion, has been steadily pointing 

 in the direction of a smoothing over of the 

 affair— not for Dr. Wiley, but for Mr. 

 Wickersham. 



Before the matter goes further, and the 

 initial stages of it become hazy in the public 

 mind, it is well to recall just what Attorney- 

 General Wickersham did in the case. The 

 personnel board of the Department of Agri- 

 culture had found that in the arrangement 

 made by Dr. Wiley with Professor Eusby, an 

 eminent pharmacological expert, the terms of 

 a law limiting the compensation of experts 

 employed by the Agricultural Department 

 were violated. It was not alleged by anybody 

 that Professor Eusby had been overpaid for 

 his work; it was not alleged by anybody that 

 Dr. Wiley's object in securing his services 

 was anything but that of getting the best pos- 

 sible results for the government. The charge 

 was simply that the law made $4,000 a year 

 the maximum pay for an expert, that it had 

 been decided that this means that the per diem 

 pay of an expert shall not exceed $11, and 

 that Dr. Wiley had made an arrangement for 

 an annual compensation of $1,600 to Pro- 



