700 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIV. No. 882 



mental life of a great university is meas- 

 ured by the number and activities of its 

 teachers and students who are actually en- 

 gaged in productive scholarship. 



During the period when trustees and 

 regents have been more keenly interested 

 than ever before in discussing the question 

 as to whether the ideals of the high school 

 and college should or should not dominate 

 the policy of the university, two great 

 foundations, the Carnegie and Eoekefeller 

 Institutions, have been dedicated to the ad- 

 vancement of learning. Gradually the real 

 significance of their independent existences 

 is becoming more and more apparent to 

 those persons who are competent to form 

 an opinion upon the nature and scope of 

 university problems. The American uni- 

 versity to-day is an institution devoted 

 primarily to teaching, while its assumed 

 right to the title of a seat of learning is 

 still open to question. Will the old bottles 

 hold the new wine? If they do not then 

 the intelligent interest of a rapidly in- 

 creasing number of American citizens, com- 

 petent to distinguish the essential differ- 

 ences between collegiate and university 

 ideals, will within a few years provide the 

 means for the establishment of "higher 

 institutions of learning." 



Stewart Paton 



Princeton, N. J. 



PHTSIOLOGY AS A FUNDAMENTAL IN 

 VETEBINABY EDUCATION^ 



Education, like nature, should be or- 

 derly — a development from the simple to 

 the complex. The development of the mor- 

 phologically simple cell into the complex 

 adult animal organism proceeds in an or- 

 derly way. The cell is the morphological 

 unit and the mature animal consists of in- 



' Presented at the meeting of the Association of 

 Veterinary Faculties and Examining Boards of 

 North America at Toronto, Canada, August, 1911. 



numerable units, some of which have 

 undergone a very great modification as to 

 form. The cell can not be accepted as the 

 physiological unit. What is apparently 

 simple as to form is not necessarily simple 

 as to function. The activities of the cell 

 are but partially understood. The physio- 

 logical unit, around which center these ac- 

 tivities, is, like the atom of chemistry, in- 

 visible, but its power is unquestioned. 

 Function is concealed in stnicture. Func- 

 tion is not often revealed without search 

 and, indeed, research. In some instances 

 it may be so superficial as to be easily rec- 

 ognized ; in others it may lie so deeply that 

 the keenest intellect is bafBed in demon- 

 strating its presence in a satisfactory man- 

 ner. 



The relation of physiology to the biolog- 

 ical sciences is most intimate. It is not a 

 question of independence but of interde- 

 pendence. Many more or less plausible 

 arguments may be advanced that one par- 

 ticular science may have a greater relative 

 value than others. Chemistry and physics 

 are concerned with matter and we ordi- 

 narily associate them with unorganized 

 bodies. Physiology is restricted to liv- 

 ing matter, or organized bodies. We 

 can not consider inorganic material 

 in physiological terms. Yet chemistry 

 and physics are intricately involved in 

 physiological processes and the question 

 arises, perhaps, in the minds of some if, 

 under the proper combination of condi- 

 tions and of environment, life is not 

 evolved from chemical reactions. Chem- 

 ical action is constantly occurring in living 

 tissue. Does it control the living tissue 

 or does the living tissue control it ? In the 

 processes of filtration, diffusion and osmo- 

 sis, physics occupies a relationship scarcely 

 less intimate than chemistry. Solutions of 

 crystallizable substances of unequal con- 

 centration separated by an animal mem- 



