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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVIII. No. 991 



can be hired. When you hire or enslave a 

 man you secure only mechanical service. 

 The world's work can not be done by hired 

 muscle alone, but requires personal interest, 

 moral character and entire manhood. 

 Slaves survive in their pyramids, their 

 temples and their papyri, where their mas- 

 ters have perished. The successful and pro- 

 gressive civilizations of to-day are founded 

 on the freedom and self-satisfaction of the 

 individual. The most acute problems of 

 modern society arise out of the hiring of 

 men to do work which they would much 

 prefer to do for themselves and would do 

 better for themselves. These things bear 

 their lessons for universities, if we will 

 heed them. Freedom of speech and com- 

 plete self-government are necessary to the 

 best interests of a university. A whole 

 staff is together more capable than any 

 one man. Suppression of staff members 

 who speak without authority of the head is 

 the suppression of truth and initiative. It 

 has resulted and must result in the selection 

 of weak men for the faculty and in narrow- 

 ness, bigotry and provincialism in the insti- 

 tution. Self-government will draw strong 

 men into the faculty, will stimulate initia- 

 tive, will make possible and encourage pro- 

 gressive administration, and will bring to 

 mental endeavor on the part of both stu- 

 dent and teacher the freshness of the morn- 

 ing air, the pursuit of a goal of one's own 

 choosing, and satisfaction in the achieve- 

 ment of one's ideals. 



J. B. Johnston 

 University of Minnesota 



THE FUM-SEAL CENSUS FOB 1913 

 In the summer of 1912, for the first time, a 

 complete enumeration of the breeding stock of 

 the fur-seal herd of the Pribilof Islands was 

 made. Prior to that season estimates of the 

 herd were based upon a full count of harems, 

 to which an average harem, obtained by count- 

 ing individual animals upon a part of the 



breeding ground, was applied. The rookeries 

 counted were naturally the smaller and more 

 scattered ones and the average harem derived 

 from them did not fairly represent the larger 

 rookeries. The importance of the annual 

 estimates, however, lay in the measure of de- 

 cline which they afforded, and for this pur- 

 pose they were as useful as exact counts would 

 have been. 



The treaty of July 7, 1911, suspended 

 pelagic sealing, the cause of the herd's de- 

 cline, and it was natural to expect a cessation 

 of decline and the beginning of growth toward 

 recovery. The exact condition of the breeding 

 stock at its lowest point became, therefore, in 

 1912, a consideration of the greatest impor- 

 tance. A count of all the breeding families, 

 which was in effect a count of the breeding 

 males, was easily made, but the females come 

 and go in the sea and are never all on the land 

 at one time. They furthermore could not be 

 counted accurately, if they were all present, as 

 they can not be herded or driven. Their direct 

 enumeration, therefore, is an impracticable 

 thing. The young pups, however, are timid 

 of the water during the first month or six 

 weeks of their lives and do not go into it. 

 After the breeding season is over, that is, early 

 in August, the mothers can be driven off and 

 the young herded and handled like sheep. As 

 each pup represents a mother, the problem 

 became merely one of counting all the pups. 

 This was accomplished and an account of the 

 work for 1912 was given in the December 27 

 issue of Science. 



As the census of 1912 was important to give 

 exact information regarding the breeding stock 

 at its lowest point, so a repetition of this 

 census in 1913 became important to establish 

 a measure of increase or expansion in this 

 breeding stock. The total number of pups 

 found in 1912 was 81,984. For the season of 

 1913 the total was 92,269, a gain of 12J per 

 cent. The normal annual gain of the herd 

 arises from the accession of young three-year- 

 old females coming upon the rookeries each 

 season to bear their first pups. The theoretical 

 rate of gain, as deduced from the quota of 

 three-year-old males, taken in recent years. 



