140 The Department of Plant Physiology [338 
ics and chemistry can enter our physiological work. If his 
morphological or physical knowledge is inadequate this may 
be corrected as his work goes on. In short, an interest in, 
and a serious desire to become proficient in, plant physiology 
are the only prerequisites for the training that is here offered. 
The work of this department has thus far been exclusively 
graduate work, so that all of our students are intellectually 
rather mature. The scarcity of opportunities for carrying on 
advanced work in plant physiology, together with the fact that 
numerous educational institutions offer opportunity for ele- 
mentary academic courses in this and the related subjects, 
have made it appear undesirable to institute undergraduate 
courses here. Experience seems to show, furthermore, that 
the intellectual power of graduate students is greater among 
those who have migrated from one institution to another, than 
it is among those who have performed their undergraduate 
work in the same institution as that in which graduate work 
is undertaken. Whether a causal relation is mainly involved 
here is questionable, for the very fact of student migration 
generally bespeaks a serious purpose and a definite aim; but 
it is also undoubtedly true that student migration tends 
strongly to prevent and to obliterate provincial traits of men- 
tal character, and to give to the student who has thus 
migrated one or more times a more extensive series of in- 
terests and a deeper appreciation of relative values. 
The general purpose in the training of our students may 
be expressed as the inculcation of scholarly habits and of 
personal judgment in the carrying out of research. To this 
end, the work of the department is carried on as though 
research itself—productive scientific study—were the main 
aim. The student thus becomes, as it were, an apprentice in 
what is planned to be creative physiological endeavor, and he 
develops through striving to solve physiological problems 
and to interpret and present the results obtained. He is 
thus led to read the literature because he seeks the knowl- 
edge that it contains, rather than because such reading has 
