August 19, 189S.] 



SCIENCE. 



213 



The high school teacher should develop 

 the power of reasoning and exact observa- 

 tion; the college teacher the power of gen- 

 eralizing and the creative faculty; he should 

 strive to teach the student to think in the 

 terms of his science. To do this he must 

 himself be a creator; he himself must have 

 engaged in lines of original thought and 

 investigation; he must be a living spring, 

 not a pail of water. I have heard it said 

 that the best teachers are often those who 

 have never been able to engage in original 

 research. I am inclined to doubt this. 

 Granted, the investigator may not have the 

 power of fluent speech in the same degree 

 as some others, but he has the inspiration; 

 he has the 'point of view;' he is able to 

 feel relationships and connections which 

 the other cannot, and as a consequence is 

 able to place his pupil's learning on a 

 broader and more permanent basis. 



Finally, the college is not the place for 

 narrow specialization; in it the scientiiic 

 student should still be laying his broad 

 foundation, with the understanding that he 

 must also be gaining a clearer view of the 

 sister sciences which are related to and 

 necessary for an understanding of that 

 which he has chosen for his main subject. 

 The college is no more than the high 

 school the place for technical training, for 

 the latter is never developed in its proper 

 form unless its foundations ai-e laid broad 

 and deep, so that they will, without strain, 

 support any superstructure which may be 

 be placed upon them. It is only when this 

 is the case that the uuiversity development 

 can have its proper meaning. The college 

 should bring forth the man iwepared to spe- 

 cialize, not the man who has, by a too early 

 following of a narrow line, stunted his 

 power of future development. The uni- 

 versity should be able to take many things 

 for granted ; it should at once be able to de- 

 vote its time to the growth of the profes- 

 sional biologist, physicist, chemist, min.eral- 



ogist or geologist; and, while, of course, it 

 cannot lose sight of the fact that at no 

 stage of the scientific career are the related 

 sciences to be neglected, it should, neverthe- 

 less, be able to count on training proper and 

 sufficient to fit the student for the original 

 thought and work which must become a 

 part of his being ; for, if he wishes to ac- 

 complish anything, these habits must be 

 with him through life. 



In this way the scientific training of a 

 student becomes a harmonious whole with- 

 out break, let or hindrance, from the begin- 

 ning in the secondary school up to the 

 mature work of the investigator and 

 teacher; for the members are of one race 

 and of one people, forever whole and indi- 

 visible. 



Paul C. Feeee. 



The University of Michigan", 

 Ann Aeboe. 



THE LACOE COLLECTION IN THE NATIONAL 

 3fUSEU3L 

 In Science for July 3, 1896, the late Dr. 

 G. Brown Goode announced the very valu- 

 able gift of the ' Lacoe Collection of Fossil 

 Plants.' At that time Mr. E. D. Lacoe, a 

 leading business man of Pittston, Pennsyl- 

 vania, presented to the U. S. National Mu- 

 seum by far the largest and most valuable 

 collection of Paleozoic plants in America, 

 comparing favorably with the richest col- 

 lections of the same nature in European 

 museums. Living in a region rich in fossil 

 plants, and noting early in the seventies 

 that no great collections of this kind were 

 accumulating, and also that little or no at- 

 tention was being given to securing Ameri- 

 can Paleozoic insects, which are among the 

 rarest of fossils, he quietly set to work gath- 

 ering material and assisting paleontologists 

 in the study of his collections. The plant 

 collection contains nearly 100,000 speci- 

 mens and is stored in 1,000 museum draw- 

 ers and many large exhibition cases. There 



