February, ’24] 
RUGGLES: PIONEERING IN ENTOMOLOGY 
35 
that we as scientists should not be too impulsive. We should be de¬ 
liberate and not change radically until all the scientific facts are brought 
out and marshalled in evidence. We should not be too hasty to change 
nor so conservative that we can not change when the truth comes. 
The subject that I have chosen for my address is very similar to sub¬ 
jects used by former presidents of this association but one that I think 
will best express some of the ideas that have been formulating in my 
mind for a number of years. I trust I can present them in the way I 
feel them. 
I am particularly interested in the younger entomologists. I should 
like to have them get a vision beyond the things we are doing in economic 
entomology today and see what a tremendous realm our favorite science 
occupies in the affairs of men, offering wonderful opportunities for study, 
recreation and thought. Many of us have to do missionary work of the 
simplest type in entomology. Someone has to do it and we do it gladly 
if only the younger men will appreciate and profit by what has been 
done for them in the making way for the bigger things that they are to 
do. 
The thesis I wish to develop at this time is that there has been a 
gradual process of development to produce the economic entomologist. 
The first real economic entomologists were predominantly morphological 
and systematic entomologists. Then the importance of injurious forms 
becoming more apparent, the entomologists became more and more 
economic entomologists and less morphologists and systematists, until 
today the economic entomologist accepts everything he can use from 
the morphologist, the systematist, the biologist, the chemist, the 
physicist, the physiologist, and particularly that new man, the ecologist, 
an “ist” using these and all other combinations. The wonderful 
strides made in the last few years where the combination is working the 
strongest shows what cooperation and coordination can do, and in all 
this wonderful development of our science I believe we are still in the 
pioneer stage. I believe we are just on the verge of great developments 
in economic entomology. 
Before passing on to the development of my thesis I should like to take 
a little time to mention briefly the pioneers in entomology. Many of the 
older biologists worked with other animals as well as with insects. 
Often these men were nothing but compilers, observers or philosophers, 
yet all exerted a certain amount of influence on future thought and 
work. All of these men who in any way influenced the study of en¬ 
tomology, which is the foundation study of economic entomology, 
