REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR I916 I4I 



sistence of this same purpose on the part of our Survey graduates 

 that will lead them to do their share in planning for the utilization 

 of the nation's mineral wealth, not merely so as to increase dividends 

 for the corporations that employ them or to assist a few capitalists 

 in speculative endeavors to corner some limited resource, but also 

 so as to benefit society in a large way through future decades. 

 Why can we not be trained scientists and professional geologists 

 and loyal citizens at one and the same time? 



President Viricent has referred to the sweeping indictment of 

 professional schools, with all their modern efficiency, as turning out 

 graduates " bent upon personal success and regarding the public 

 as a mine to be worked rather than a community to be served." 

 In whatever degree unwarranted, this criticism, as President Vincent 

 points out, is in itself encouraging as a sign of general discontent 

 with self-centered careers. And there is another approach to this 

 subject of the civic obligations resting upon us as geologists. Those 

 of us who have shared in the benefits of the American educational 

 system, up to and including the university, must realize to what a 

 large extent our education has been gratuitous. As Doctor Becker 

 once expressed it to me : " Men who seek or use their university 

 training solely for their personal advantage are almstakers. Only 

 by public service can educated men repay the debt they incur and 

 thus fulfil the designs of the founders." 



It is a fortunate sign of the times that applied science is touching 

 more and more upon the human and social side of its work. 

 Measure of the breadth of view already attained in this public service 

 idea is found in this month's issue of a leading technical journal, 

 Metallurgical and Chemical Engineering, wherein the longest 

 editorial bears the title " Expensive Slums." Social responsibility 

 is acknowledged and civic duty set forth in the closing sentence of 

 this editorial : " It is needful for industries that they be in good 

 standing, and they can not maintain good standing so long as they 

 have slum attachments." 



So, too, it is eminently fitting that in a technical volume bearing 

 the title " Iron Ores" the closing chapters should discuss the large 

 social questions of public and private policy. The author, a geologist 

 and fellow of this society, properly regards the social value of iron 

 just as worthy of his thought as the purity of its ores. Indeed, it 

 is simply the need of society that makes the mineral hematite an ore 

 and thus the object of the geologist's special study. 



In my administrative report for the past year I had occasion to 

 refer to a professional paper by Doctor Gilbert now in press. In 



