New Yorx Agricurturat Exprriment Station. 25 
activity to another subject without seriously checking his momen- 
tum along the main line of thought. 
2. The teaching habit, especially in a popular way, cannot be 
considered as an aid, and may easily be a hindrance, to the close 
analytical mental processes along technical lines which are essen- 
tial to success in scientific studies. This may explain why the. 
platform efforts of many of our ablest men of science, who seldom 
attempt popular discussions, are characterized as “ dry,” while 
on the other hand the scientist who gives himself over to culti- 
vating popular ways of speech and thought often finds himself 
drifting away from a love and aptitude for severe research. It is 
not impossible, nor perhaps very unusual, for men of scientific 
attainments to be efficient public speakers, but nevertheless we 
cannot ignore the essential difference between the mental status 
required for popular instruction and that necessary to rigid scien- 
tific inquiry. 
Certainly that statement so often heard that contact with the 
people is necessary to the investigator is not substantiated either 
by theory or observation. Some of the most profound and useful 
discoveries in science have been reached by men who seldom 
emerged from their laboratories, and certain American experi- 
menters whose efforts have been fruitful of important results are 
those who are seldom heard in public. 
The situation in New York is such as to require a careful 
adjustment between the experiment station and the institutes in 
order to best promote the success of both. On the one hand 
farmers should not assume that the members of the station staff 
are most useful to them when they speak from the platform, 
because this is seldom true. They should not be too insistent in 
‘their demands for platform effort. On the other hand some sys- 
tematic and well understood arrangement should be made so that 
the station workers can anticipate interruptions and thus make 
such plans as are necessary to an economical use of time. If one of 
the station staff is to address ten institutes he should be allowed 
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