January 9, 1903.] 



SCIENCE. 



67 



Eussian and issued by a local scientific 

 society in Kamchatka. 



To illustrate the hopelessness of consult- 

 ing all of the literature on even the most 

 limited subject I will venture on a bit of 

 personal experience. 



For the past ten years I have earnestly 

 endeavored to consult all of the papers 

 regarding a very small group of animals 

 in which I am particularly interested. In 

 addition to buying everything that was 

 mentioned in numerous lists and cata- 

 logues from the best European book deal- 

 ers, the libraries of Harvard, the National 

 Museimi, the Congressional Library, the 

 private library of Dr. Agassiz at Newport, 

 the library of the Naples Zoological Sta- 

 tion and other famous libraries in Europe 

 were faithfully consulted and a card cata- 

 logue of every reference to a species in- 

 cluded in the group under consideration 

 was made. After which it seemed that I 

 could at last work with some confidence 

 that nearly all of the possible synonyms 

 were where I could get at them when 

 wanted. A few weeks ago the mail brought 

 me a paper published in Geneva, in which 

 occurred no less than one hundred titles 

 of papers relating to the group of animals 

 in which I had been working, not one of 

 which I had been able to find. 



Now if it is so difficult, nay impossible, 

 for one who has access to a number of the 

 best libraries to feel confident of avoiding 

 the creation of synonyms, how can we ex- 

 pect the young worker with access to only 

 a few books to avoid the same catastrophe ? 

 Of course it is easy to say that he has no 

 business to attempt systematic work, and 

 perhaps we should be justified in such a 

 remark. But, after all, our position would 

 be sadly like that of the historic mother 

 who forbade her daughter to go near the 

 water until she had learned to swim. 



There is a distinct danger in attempting 

 to restrict systematic work to those excep- 



tional persons Avho have access to first-class- 

 libraries. Thoroughly equipped systema- 

 tists will be needed in the world for a long- 

 time to come, in spite of frankly expressed 

 views to the contrary, and the ranks of 

 those passing away must be filled by com- 

 petent men. Such men must be supplied 

 mostly from our colleges and universities, 

 and it is futile to expect the few institu- 

 tions having adequate libraries to turn out 

 a sufficient number of men to do this work. 



As a matter of fact, the very universi- 

 ties that are in the best position to do 

 such work are the ones that offer the least 

 encouragement to the woidd-be systematist. 

 In my opinion, our best-equipped univer- 

 sities are falling far short of their proper- 

 function in not paying more serious atten- 

 tion to this part of biological science. 

 Some time ago I received a letter from a 

 zoologist holding a high position in one of 

 our largest museums, in which he com- 

 plained that, while they were able to find' 

 plenty of young men who could work out 

 the histology of a definite organ, or the- 

 embryology of a species, or undertake ex- 

 perimental work, there was only one uni- 

 versity that he knew of, and that a western 

 one, that gave students the training that' 

 was necessary to make them competent to 

 work up a collection. For years there 

 have been waiting for suitable men the- 

 vast accumulations of material in our great 

 museums, and it is impossible to find men 

 able to work up some of the most impor- 

 tant groups. 



Such, then, is the situation. There is 

 the most urgent need for competent system- 

 atists, and our universities, the natural 

 source of supply, are doing next to nothing- 

 in the way of training men for this im- 

 portant work. 



But the objection may here be raised" 

 that the systematist is a specialist of a 

 kind that cannot be trained for his work 

 in the ordinary university course. 



