April, ’23] 
ball: post-graduate study in entomology 
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one hand, or the encouragement of insect-destroying diseases, on the 
other. 
Any serious study of distribution or life histories involves factors 
of evolution and adaptation of both plants and animals, their ecological 
inter-relationships and probable trends of modification. This involves 
familiarity with the fundamentals of geology, soils, and climate, and 
their relative influence upon the complex under consideration. 
The factors of attraction and repulsion in the ingredients of the va¬ 
rious insecticides and fungicides used both direct and indirect, as brought 
out by Dr. Moore, call for a broad knowledge of chemistry, physics and 
physiology of both plants and animals. 
The successful entomological worker of the future will therefore have 
an adequate undergraduate and post-graduate training, and that train¬ 
ing will consist of introduction to the fundamentals of a large number of 
fields of knowledge, such as chemistry, physics, botany, zoology, 
physiology, geology, bacteriology, genetics, plant pathology, and ento¬ 
mology in the sciences, and economics, sociology, mathematics, history 
and languages in related fields, a knowledge of the fundamentals of 
nearly all the fields being more valuable than a more extended acquaint¬ 
ance with a smaller number. 
The second fundamental in post-graduate work is to furnish adequate 
training in the methods of research. Theoretically this is the end 
sought; practically, it is more in the nature of a try-out to see if the 
individual possesses that almost intangible and indefinable something 
that makes for success in research. We owe it to our science to discover 
any tiny spark of that ability latent in the available material; watch 
over it, encourage it, and when found, fan it into a flame that will 
assist in dispelling the darkness of ignorance and in revealing the new 
pathways for human progress. 
The third essential to graduate training, and in many respects the 
most important one, is to bring the student into contact with strong 
minds, men of inspiration, of vision, and of leadership. If we will 
consider for a minute the influence wielded on the future of science, 
through the inspiration of other workers, by a Pasteur or an Agassiz, 
or in more recent years by a Comstock, an Osborn, or a Fernald, we 
will thereafter in selecting courses for the graduate student, give more 
.attention to the man than the subject. The inspiration, enthusiasm, 
and the point of view of a great man are worth far more than any 
relative merit of individual subjects. 
