April, ’23] 
o’kane: the entomologist and the public 
177 
For most of us contacts with broader groups are of daily occurrence 
and inevitable. We have a miscellaneous mass of correspondence to 
handle, publications to prepare for the layman as well as for the scien¬ 
tific reader, meetings to address, wherein the audience may know little 
about our subject matter. We are in contact daily with this or that 
person to whom our training and knowledge mean the opportunity 
to seek information or help. It is a characteristic of our profession, 
as it is of that of the physician. It carries with it an obligation that 
is at the same time a privilege. 
The widest contacts made by the entomologist presumably are 
secured through the printed word: through bulletins, circulars and arti¬ 
cles in the popular press. It should require no proof to demonstrate 
that for these contacts the first and vital essential is a definite, ready 
and workable command of English. Entomology is not alone in this 
requirement. It prevails, I am convinced, through all of the tasks 
that the college-bred man of today, whatever his calling, may undertake. 
Its possession is an equipment of definite, undeniable value which will 
facilitate his work, make it more effective and give him pleasure in its 
use. It is and should be fundamental in college courses. But its ac¬ 
quirement is not a matter of classroom alone. It is to be attained and 
strengthened only through diligent, thoughtful exercise, backed up by 
a lively interest and a sure appreciation of its worth. 
You may say that this possession is unnecessary in the work of the 
man who is engaged solely in research. It is perhaps unnecessary in 
the sense that the given task of research may be carried on without it. 
But there could be no manner of doubt that with its help even the 
research specialist will strengthen at least some phase of his task. 
I recall at the moment a technical bulletin that I read two or three 
years ago, describing the result of a long series of studies. It was a 
work of importance, broadly fundamental to the science of entomology 
and of interest not -only to all who are engaged in that science but to 
the workers in other branches of biology, in chemistry and in physics. 
There was solid substance there. But it was so involved in the telling 
that its value was hidden rather than disclosed and its precise meaning 
made uncertain in some of its aspects. It was an excellent example of 
the unconscious art of obscuring valuable thought by valueless words. 
In contrast my mind reverts to a brief paper read before our Asso¬ 
ciation three or four years ago by one of the founders of Economic 
Entomology. The facts described in the paper were so clearly and so 
graphically expressed that one grasped them instantly and without 
