546 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVIII. No. 981 



DISCUSSION AND COEBESFONDENCE 



DOCTORATES CONFERRED BY AMERICAN 

 UNIVERSITIES 



To THE Editor of Science: Tour article 

 " Doctorates conferred by American Universi- 

 ties " (Science, No. 973) is a valuable state- 

 ment of facts from vehich you have v^isely 

 refrained from drawing conclusions. I fear 

 that many of your readers will take it almost 

 as a matter of course that those institutions 

 which confer the largest number of doctor's 

 degrees are the ones which are doing most for 

 the highest education and for the progress of 

 scholarship in America. This inference is not 

 merely erroneous but is distinctly harmful. It 

 is true that those institutions which succeed in 

 collecting the largest number of students with 

 the capacity and preparation necessary for do- 

 ing work to some slight extent original, and 

 which have teachers able and willing to inspire 

 their students with the desire to do productive 

 work are contributing most to the scientific ad- 

 vancement of the country. It is also true that 

 other things being equal such institutions will 

 produce each year the largest numbers of doc- 

 tors. There is, however, another element of 

 fundamental importance which is too often 

 left out of account. The level of attainment 

 and capacity of our doctors is, on the average, 

 below that of German doctors, and these latter 

 stand far below the doctors of several other 

 European nations, such as France or the Scan- 

 dinavian countries. In these latter countries 

 the holder of the doctor's degree may, to use 

 your phrase, be said to be " officially certified 

 as competent to undertake advanced teaching 

 and research work." In Germany and in this 

 country such a statement must be taken in a 

 decidedly Pickwickian sense, most doctors there 

 being quite unable to stand alone scientifically. 

 This is of less consequence in Germany, where 

 the keen competition of the best doctors for 

 academic promotion gives a sufficient incentive 

 to further development beyond the usually 

 rather low level of the doctor's degree. In this 

 country such incentives are to a large extent 

 lacking, and it is the duty of the strongest 

 universities to raise the level of the doctor's 

 degree distinctly above the standard set in Ger- 

 many. Some of our strongest institutions are 



aware of this fact and try, even if as yet only 

 in an uncertain and halting manner, to per- 

 form this duty in spite of the competition of 

 the weaker institutions, some of which are glad 

 to give the degree to men of doubtful qualifica- 

 tions. To expect uniformity of standard here 

 would be Utopian; but it is important that in 

 judging the relative success of different uni- 

 versities the quality of the output be given at 

 least as much weight as the quantity. I, for 

 one, hope the time is still very far distant when 

 as large a proportion of our population take 

 the doctor's degree as is the case in Germany. 

 Maxime Bocher 

 Haevakd Universitt 



air in the depths of the ocean 

 Several months ago three communications 

 relating to the manner in which the water in 

 the depths of the ocean is aerated, appeared in 

 Science' and a recent review' of them has 

 served to call attention to this subject again. 

 Before the question is finally dismissed it 

 may be worth while to point out that the single 

 factor, namely, diffusion, suggested in these 

 articles as the sole agent involved, plays only a 

 negligible role in the process of aeration. The 

 atmospheric gases diffuse very slowly through 

 water, the coefficient of nitrogen being 1.73, of 

 oxygen 1.62, and of carbon dioxide 1.38. The 

 rapidity with which oxygen is transferred is 

 well illustrated by Hiifner's^ computations for 

 the Bodensee, which has a maximum depth of 

 about 250 meters. His results show (1) that it 

 would take oxygen about forty-two and a third 

 years to pass from the surface to the bottom 

 of this lake by the process of diffusion alone; 

 (2) that it would take over a hundred thou- 

 sand years for the quantity of oxygen which 

 its waters at a temperature of 10° C. are capa- 

 ble of holding, to diffuse into a body of water 

 of equal area and unlimited depth; (3) that, 

 under natural conditions, with the depth 

 limited to 250 meters, it would require over a 

 million years for this body of water to become 

 saturated at the above temperature if it had no 



1 Vol. XXXIV., pp. 239, 562 and 874. 



2 Internat. Bevue, Bd. V., p. 448. 



s Arch, fur Anat.und Physiol. (Physiol. Abteil.), 

 1897, p. 112. 



