36 



membership, however, is made up of those whose chief oeoupatiou is 

 teaching. 



While it has not alwaj^s been the case, it is probably true at present 

 that the most valuable contributions to human knowledge are made by 

 those engaged in this profession of teaching. This is not surprising, for 

 the nature of his calling demands that the teacher to be effective must 

 ever continue to be a student, and the thorough study of any subject 

 reveals the limits of our knowledge in that field and tempts the man of 

 active intellect to the task of extending those boundaries ; there is surely 

 no keener pleasure than the learning by one's own search some truth, how- 

 ever inconspicuous, not previously known. 



Not only does teaching tend to stimulate research, it also gives it 

 balance by preventing the too exclusive attention to the comparatively 

 narrow field under intensive cultivation ; the necessity of presenting well- 

 ordered information covering the broader subject, and the oral statement 

 of original theories and conclusions, must have a broadening and clari- 

 fying influence on the intellectual activity of the investigator. 



As teaching is a help to research, still more is research a vitalizer of 

 teaching, particularly of the teaching appropriate for graduate students; 

 indeed, the work of research is at least as important as that of instruction 

 where advanced students are concerned, and the university should be a 

 source of knowledge, where those desiring to devote themselves to the 

 same high quest may be stimulated by the example and companionship of 

 productive scholars. 



The leading European nations have apparently realized more clearly 

 than we the value of scientific research, and have provided more adequate 

 rewards and more favorable environment for the investigator, with the 

 i-esult that the ratio of intellectual to material prosperity is higher there 

 than here. Within the past generation, however, we have become more 

 awake to these matters, and have determined in our strenuous way to' make 

 research "hum." The awakening has unquestionably been beneficial on 

 the whole, but we have, it seems to me, failed to grasp certain fundamental 

 distinctions between the needs of graduate and of undergraduate stu- 

 dents ; the hujii of research iias been allowed to drown the ci'ies of the 

 injured in manj' an undergraduate school, where teaching is sacrificed to 

 research, and where too early specialization is encouraged and even 

 forced upon the student. 



