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of new knowledge, and all other matters should be arranged with a view 

 to encourage and stimulate scientific investigation. A very moderate 

 amount of class instruction and other duties should be demanded of the 

 members of the faculty, and students should be sufficiently mature and 

 earnest to work without compulsion and with little direction under the 

 guidance and inspiration of the men who are doing real original work. 



The case of the undergraduate school is fundamentally different. I 

 believe that the prominence given to research in many undergraduate 

 schools is a positive injury to the student; his instructors are chosen on 

 account of their ability or promise as investigators instead of their quali- 

 fications as teachers, and even the student himself is encouraged or forced 

 to undertake so-called research with entirely inadequate training, both 

 as regards breadth and depth. The undergraduate years should be em- 

 ployed in acquiring a well balanced knowledge of the fundamentals of the 

 student's specialty, and an acquaintance with the elements of many allied 

 subjects, together with a \A'orking grasp of such tools as modern languages, 

 to make professional literature accessible at first hand, and mathematics, 

 for the mental training and grasp of the quantitative and statistical treat- 

 ment of all studies, and every undergraduate student should give such 

 attention to history, literature and economics as to make him an intelligent 

 citizen and man of culture. 



Only when this has been in a measure accomplished — and in looking 

 back to our own college days we realize that a mere beginning had been 

 made when we graduated — is the student in a position to profitably under- 

 take research, with a proper ii])preciation of what he is doing and how to 

 do it, so that it is really research for him and he is not merely a pair 

 of hands under the direction of another's brain. The effectiveness of a 

 scientific investigator is generally proportional to the thoroughness of his 

 preparation ; too many attempt to discover new truths before they have 

 grasped those already discovered by others. 



In many institutions one of the requirements for graduation is called 

 a thesis, and such a tradition is difficult to dislodge, but I think the 

 name is unfortunately pretentious and is apt to mislead the student into 

 tliinking hims'jlf more advanced than tlie facts justify; it savors of the 

 same spirit tliat induces tlie higli school to ape the college in so many ways. 

 in its pernicious fraternities and even in having a "baccalaureate" service — - 

 doubtless to celebrate the fact that tlie boys about to graduate are still 



