SCIENCE. 



FRIDAY, JANUARY 9, 1885. 



COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 



In another part of this number, Professor 

 Hilgard takes exception to our views of the 

 proper functions of agricultural experiment- 

 stations, as stated some weeks ago. Yet 4t to 

 render to the agricultural population the scien- 

 tific aid which the}' so sorely need when brought 

 face to face with new and untried conditions," 

 is precisely what we understand to be the 

 object of experiment-stations. The question 

 simply is, How shall such scientific aid be best 

 afforded? Shall the experiment-station seek 

 to reach an empirical solution of one problem 

 after another as it may be presented to it, or 

 shall it search into the elementaiy conditions of 

 the most important of those problems, and thus 

 endeavor to work out a rational solution ? The 

 view which we hold, and which seems to be 

 indorsed by the paragraph we quoted in our 

 comments of Dec. 5 from Director Sturtevant's 

 report, is that it should do both ; proportioning 

 the amount of the two kinds of work according 

 to the necessities of the particular case, but 

 endeavoring to do as much work of the kind 

 last mentioned as possible. We believe that 

 work of the latter class should be held in the 

 higher esteem, and that the constituency of 

 the station should, if possible, be brought so to 

 regard it, because its results are of vastly more 

 permanent value. We do not hold that it 

 should necessarily, or even usually, be placed 

 first in the order of time, or that it should ever 

 become the exclusive work of any public ex- 

 periment-station . 



Our suggested differentiation of agricultural 

 experimentation would proceed upon a some- 

 what different basis, giving to the experiment- 

 station proper the working-out of scientific re- 

 sults (empirical or rational, as the case may be) , 

 and to the experimental farm the verification 



No. 101. — 1885. 



of these results under the actual conditions of 

 farm practice. We do not deny the advan- 

 tages of uniting these two kinds of work in 

 one institution when possible ; but the men who 

 combine the high scientific attainments and 

 thorough acquaintance with practice necessary 

 for the direction of both kinds of work arc 

 rare, and are likely to be rare for man}' years 

 to come. We therefore hold, that, when such 

 a man cannot be secured and kept as director, 

 the disadvantages of segregation will be less than 

 the disadvantages of having either the scien- 

 tific experiments, or the verification in practice 

 of their results, undertaken by incompetent 

 hands. The separation would be in manage- 

 ment, not necessarily in either time or space. 

 There appears to us to be comparatively little 

 danger that the work of American experiment- 

 stations will be too rigidly scientific, and too far 

 removed from the apprehension of farmers. 

 There is a constant pressure upon a station for 

 immediate!}- useful results, and an} 7 station re- 

 fusing reasonable conformity to it will not enjoy 

 a long life. On the other hand, there is dan- 

 ger that this pressure for immediate and strik- 

 ing results may lead to a neglect of the scientific 

 functions of such an institution. 



The second series of the Johns Hopkins 

 university studies in historical and political 

 science, being the twelve numbers for 1884. is 

 just completed ; and Dr. Adams, its editor. 

 may congratulate himself on his continued 

 success in grouping together the monographic 

 essays of the younger school of historical 

 writers, who are arrayed under his supervis- 

 ion, and bow to one of Freeman's character- 

 istic utterances, that ' history is past politics, 

 and politics is present history.' These papers 

 evince a new school of historico-political stu- 

 dents, who carry antiquarianism beyond a dry 

 assortment of agglutinated facts, and human- 

 ize it by connection with social development. 

 The studv of institutional and economic history, 



