May 7, 1897.] 



SCIENCE. 



731 



Books, maps, etc., especially imported, not more 

 than two copies in any one invoice, for the use of any 

 society or institution established solely for religious, 

 philosophical, educational, scientific or literary pur- 

 poses, or for the encouragement of the fine arts, or for 

 the use of any college, school or public library, and 

 not for sale. 



Paintings, original drawings and sketches, en- 

 gravings and statuary, not otherwise provided for ; 

 paraffine, philosophical and scientific apparatus for 

 schools, libraries and societies ; professional books, 

 implements and instruments, and tools of trade or 

 occupation in the actual possession at the time of 

 persons arriving in the United States ; regalia and 

 gems, statues, casts of marble, bronze, or alabaster, 

 where specially imported in good faith for the use of 

 any society, school or library. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS. 



The will of the late John Foster, of Boston, 

 gives $120,000 to public purposes, including 

 $10,000 to the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 

 nology. 



The will of the late Charles Bell, of Spring- 

 field, Mass., bequeaths $7,000 to "Wellesley Col- 

 lege for a scholarship fund. 



Brown Univeesity receives $10,000 by the 

 settlement of the will of the late Mrs. Maria 

 L. Benedict, of Providence. 



Professor H. L. Hutchin, Dean of the Law 

 Department of the University of Michigan, has 

 been offered the presidency of the University 

 during President Angell's absence in Turkey. 



Mr. C. H. "Warren has been appointed in- 

 structor in mineralogy in the Sheffield Scientific 

 School of Yale University. 



The Spanish universities and other educa- 

 tional institutions under state control have just 

 been thrown open to foreigners by royal decree. 

 By the new ordinance foreigners are admitted to 

 theright of matriculation, study and examination 

 in all educational establishments under the 

 Spanish government, and are entitled to take 

 degrees in the universities. 



In announcing last week the promotion of 

 Professor Albert Bushnell Hart, of Harvard 

 University, it was accidentally stated that his 

 chair was physics; it should, of course, have 

 been history. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 



TYPE SPECIMENS IN NATURAL HISTORY. 



A RECENT number of Science* contains an 

 article by Mr. Charles Schuchert, entitled 

 ' What is a Type in Natural History ? ' 

 The title is misleading, for, instead of discussing 

 type forms or types of groups, Mr. Schuchert 

 confines his attention to type specimens, and 

 chiefly to the names by which such specimens 

 may be designated, in which direction he 

 shows remarkable fertility of resource. In 

 view of these facts, and of the additional cir- 

 cumstances that the subject is approached 

 from the standpoint of the student of fossils, 

 his paper might have been better described 

 under some such heading as ' Suggestions for 

 the Multiplication of Type Specimens in Pale- 

 ontology.' 



Mr. Schuchert revives several obsolete terms, 

 such as paratype arid metatype, which have 

 never been used, so far as I am aware, even by 

 the man who proposed them, and adds a num- 

 ber of his own invention, such as genotype, ho- 

 lotype, hypotype, plastotype and hypoplastotype. 

 These may be taken as mild examples of a 

 prevalent and apparently incurable form of 

 mania which busies itself in burdening science 

 with a useless and formidable terminology. 

 The most serious objection to such terms is the 

 discouraging effect they have on students, for 

 they wall in a subject with a barrier that few 

 have the courage to assail. In my own case I 

 am bound to confess that, although the greater 

 part of my life has been spent in the study of 

 animals and plants, I am to-day unable to read 

 half the literature on these subjects, because of 

 the multiplicity of technical terms by which the 

 author's meaning is made unintelligible. Life 

 is too short and too precious to be fritted away 

 in memorizing such a disheartening and ever 

 increasing mass of terminology. 



My reasons for replying to the article in ques- 

 tion are, first, to make the occasion an excuse 

 for filing a protest against the unlimited coinage 

 of new terms, and second, to assure the amateur 

 and beginner that in descriptive zoology and 

 botany these particular terms are wholly un- 

 necessary. In practice the best systematic 

 * Science, N. S., No. 121, pp. 636-640, April 23, 

 1897. 



