SCIENCE 



FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, n 



The admirable appointment by the President of Mr. G. 

 Brown Goode as Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries was an- 

 nounced this week. It meets at once the requirements of an exact- 

 ing office and the e.xceptional provisions of the law creating it. 

 Professor Goode was intimately acquainted with the methods of 

 Commissioner Baird, whose scientific zeal and knowledge he shared, 

 and his experience and attainments in practical fish culture and in 

 the science of ichthyology make him easily first among those whose 

 qualifications the President has been called upon to consider. But 

 the fact that the President has been able to select from among the 

 civil officers of the Government a known scientist, acquainted with 

 the habits of food fishes, to serve in this important office without 

 extra compensation, does not remove the absurdity of this special 

 law. If Mr. Goode should die to-morrow there is absolutely no civi\ 

 officer of the United States qualified, under the terms of the act, to 

 take his place. The special law was passed when fish culture was 

 in its infancy. Congress was willing to risk the experiment, pro- 

 vided it was intrusted to Professor Baird, and framed the law ac- 

 cordingly. The present provisions of the law have been outgrown. 

 It is an absurdity to have a Fish Commissioner receiving not as 

 Commissioner but as Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian a 

 salary of $300 a month, and appointing and controlling a Deputy 

 Fish Commissioner at a salary of $416 a month. Nor is there any 

 reason why the Fish Commissioner should not be paid a salary 

 commensurate with the importance of his office, and be exempted 

 from discharging the duties of two offices with the pay of one. 

 These matters can be appropriately considered when the Senate is 

 called upon to confirm the new Fish Commissioner. 



In writing of examinations a few weeks since, we mentioned 

 the fact that we proposed to return to the same subject later. It 

 gives us pleasure this week to present to our readers the views of 

 Gen. Thomas J. Morgan of the Rhode Island State Normal School, 

 Prof. W. H. Payne of the University of Michigan, Supt. Thomas 

 M. Balliet of Reading, Penn., and Dr. B. A. Hinsdale of Cleveland, 

 on the function and conduct of examinations. Too many of those 

 who are engaged in the profession of teaching look upon the 

 periodically recurring examination as supernaturally ordained, and 

 therefore not to be altered or questioned. For such persons, and 

 for their pupils, an examination is a dreary routine to be dreaded. 

 It is to be looked forward to for months, and ' crammed ' for with 

 assiduity and perseverance. It is this aspect of examinations 

 which is specially to be criticised and combated. The proper place 

 and scope of examinations in any educational system must be de- 

 termined and understood. They must work in harmony with 

 enlightened instruction, and not project a foreign and inharmonious 

 element into it. We trust that the present symposium will exercise 

 a good influence toward this end. 



The question of a system of improved public roads is one so 

 closely related to every material interest of the State as to place it 

 properly among the most important questions of public economy. 

 The science of road making and maintaining, though neither diffi- 

 cult nor abstruse, is nevertheless based on principles so well estab- 

 lished and so unvarying in their operation, as to render their thor- 

 ough comprehension an essential to success in securing and main- 

 taining public roads, at once efficient and economical, whatever the 



administrative system under which they are constructed. In other 

 countries the superintendence of public highways is recognized as 

 an important and responsible duty, and is usually assigned to spe- 

 cially-trained, expert government engineers, while in the United 

 States, where the greater mileage makes the economy, if not the 

 efficiency, of roads even more important than abroad, the States 

 depend for this responsible service on private citizens locally and 

 temporarily appointed to the duty, without having provided for 

 them the technical instruction and training so essential to success 

 under any system. In view of this state of affairs we take pleasure 

 in recording a move on the part of the Engineering Department of 

 Vanderbilt University, which, under due restrictions, provides for 

 the proper instruction, free of charge, of those who may wish to 

 know enough engineering to make them the better road-builders. 



ORIGINAL RESEARCH IN THE AMERICAN COLLEGE. 



Our American colleges, with the exception of a few of the 

 larger institutions, are unfortunately not places of original research. 

 It has hardly seemed to have entered into the American idea of 

 education that a college, besides being a place of instruction, should 

 be the place for the origin of new knowledge. Of late years, how- 

 ever, the influence of German universities, and of some of the larger 

 colleges in this country, has been creating the conviction that 

 original research in some form is necessary for the life of our higher 

 educational institutions. There are thus numerous indications that 

 the future is to see our colleges more the home of new learning than 

 they have been in the past. But while we are beginning to realize 

 how greatly it is for the interest of our colleges that research should 

 be carried on within their walls, the prospects are, that, until a 

 complete change takes place in our system, such research will be 

 confined to the instructors and graduates, and will not be shared in 

 by the undergraduate student. With a few exceptional cases we 

 find the attention of the undergraduate confined to routine work, 

 and it is only after graduation that he is allowed to specialize so far 

 as to take up original investigation. Now, while this is due partly 

 to lack of facilities and opportunities, partly to lack of requisite 

 knowledge on the part of the instructor to direct such work, partly 

 to the difficulty of selecting work which a young student can do, 

 and partly to the universal disinclination to make new moves, it is 

 at the same time largely due to a more worthy reason than any of 

 these. There are many instructors in our colleges, who have every 

 facility for such work, who think it not wise to encourage it, even 

 though it would make the personal work of teaching a much more 

 congenial one. It lies outside the scope of our college course. 

 While, then, we may hope to see a time in the not distant future 

 when our colleges shall be places of research, it is very doubtful 

 whether this research will ever be shared in by the undergraduate, 

 except in isolated cases. 



The reason for this lies in the peculiarly American idea of the 

 scope of and necessity for what we call a liberal education, and not 

 in any failure to recognize the value of research. The value of re- 

 search as a means of education in stimulating the student is fully 

 appreciated. It tends to counteract many evil tendencies of our 

 college-work. Routine courses in science as ordinarily pursued are 

 apt to become monotonous and tedious to the student, soon de- 

 generating into meehanical work. With the experiments detailed 

 for him in his text-book or laboratory directions, their results cease to 

 interest him, and a careless habit is almost sure to be fostered. His 

 thought is hardly stimulated at all, but is rather curbed by the feel- 

 ing that he is going over a path which hundreds have followed be- 

 fore, and that consequently his discovering any thing new is an im- 

 possibility. It is indeed surprising to see what little thought is 

 required, on the part of the student, to go through some of our 

 routine science courses. He learns the text-book, mechanically 



