placed by a "group method" in which each pupil followed a line of investigation for himself. The results of the three years' experiment he states in the following terms: and as the course continued, the method seemed to them (the students) increasingly desirable and successful." It seems pertinent to enquire how this was determined. Would it not be possible to present the evidence in favor of this type of work in a more concrete way? In fact, if such an investigation is to be a real contribution to the science of science teaching, must the evidence not be presented in a more concrete way?

It is not the aim of the present article to question the value of the article mentioned. It is its ambitious title that challenges criticism. The average science teacher, even the university teacher, is not yet aware of the fact that the science of science teaching must proceed in exactly the same way that other sciences have proceeded. The science teacher must awake to his pedagogical problems, these problems must be clearly defined and we must proceed to their solution by the patient accumulation of facts, formulation of tentative hypotheses, discovery of additional facts frequently by experimental methods, and on the basis of such facts we must reason to the correct solution of the particular problem. To get at the desired facts methods must be devised for the evaluation of processes, for measurement of results and these results must be capable of accurate mathematical expression. Imagine a chemist who is investigating the problem of the economic production of some industrial product presenting his results to a scientific body with the statement that the method seemed to them (the workmen) increasingly desirable and successful" and having back of that statement no facts which he could present, no data to convince his audi

ence.

I am not criticizing Mr. MacArthur's statement. To make even such an indefinite statement is a valuable contribution at present to the methodology of our science instruction, but it shows the pitifully small progress that has been made in the science of science teaching. Until the science teachers of the coun

try realize that pedagogy is a science, that the problems of science teaching are clear and definite and must be solved as all science problems have been solved, we can make little progress in our science instruction.

Mr. MacArthur would make the chief aim of science instruction the development of creative thought or the ability to think scientifically, and this not only in the graduate school but in the elementary school.

It is equally important that the beginnings of a science be taught by the scientific method as that graduate work be so carried on. For the early years in any science should be given largely to discovery and original research, as are the early years of childhood. Thinking and first-hand contact would better come early, else they may never

come.

Personally I heartily endorse this statement. The discovery of the importance of the scientific method of thinking and its application to the problems of life is one of the great if not the greatest contribution of science to the life of mankind and it is the greatest contribution that science teaching can make to the life of the individual. Yet in a class of thirty-eight principals and superintendents this last summer to whom was submitted a list of aims of the elementary science of the high school with the request that they number them in order of importance, this matter of training students in the scientific method of thinking was placed nine in the list of ten. This indicates-much additional data is required to prove it-what I believe is the general impression among the executive officers of the secondary schools that training in scientific thinking is a relatively unimportant thing in science instruction. Indeed science instruction is not deemed a matter of great importance. Less than half the high schools of Illinois (48.5 per cent.) require any science for graduation. In 18.8 per cent. of them the requirement is satisfied with one half year of physiol

ogy.

Is it not high time that the science teachers of the country be organized into a national association

(a) to enlist in active propaganda to impress the community at large and the educational fraternity in particular with the importance of science instruction; (b) to discuss and agree upon the aims of science instruction, their relative importance, and proper grade placement; (c) to discuss and agree upon the principles of selection of the subject-matter for the curriculum and the placement of this subject-matter in the various levels of the school;

(d) to stimulate accurate scientific investigations along the above lines and also in the methods of teaching science; (e) to devise tests to determine in how far we are succeeding in accomplishing the desired aims of science teaching by the methods in vogue;

(f) to employ a national secretary for part time at the outset and ultimately for all of his time who would extend the influence of the organization, make it efficient and coordinate the work of individual investigators along the above lines.

ELLIOT R. DOWNING

THE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

SCIENTIFIC EVENTS BIOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON

DURING the past year biological investigations of the distribution and habits of the birds and mammals of the state of Washington have been continued by the Bureau of Biological Survey, U. S. Department of Agriculture, in cooperation with the State College of Washington, and the State Normal School, Bellingham, Washington. Early in July, 1920, there was begun a biological cross-section of the state, which, when completed, will extend from Bellingham on Puget Sound to the Pend d'Oreille country in the extreme northeastern corner of the state. During the summer season more than 200 miles were traversed by pack train in the northern Cascade Mountains, the party consisting of Professor Wil

liam T. Shaw, State College of Washington; J. M. Edson, State Normal School, Bellingham, and George G. Cantwell and Dr. Walter P. Taylor, of the Biological Survey, the last named being in general charge of the work. During the fall months Mr. Cantwell continued the cross-section, making studies in the Okanogan Highlands just south of the Canadian boundary between Oroville and Marcus, Washington. Contrasts in the fauna and flora as thus far developed are marked, and indicate that when the work is completed, materials will be available for a significant treatment of an interesting ecologic transect. It is hoped to complete the field work in the state during the present year.

THE PRESERVATION OF NATURAL CONDITIONS

THE Ecological Society of America's Committee on the Preservation of Natural Conditions has been listing and describing areas with original flora and fauna, preserved and desirable for reservation for scientific purposes, and is now just entering on the more extensive field work, with three additional joint chairman added. The plan of work and men in charge are as follows: Professor V. E. Shelford, University of Illinois, Urbana, Ill. (senior chairman, research and publication) is continuing preparation of the list which is to serve as a manual on natural areas with sections on the care, management and uses. R. B. Miller, state forester, Urbana, Ill. (chairman, publicity state organization) wishes to enlist the cooperation of one organization interested in science in each state and province. Dr. F. B. Sumner, Scripps Institution, La Jolla, Calif. (chairman, organization of research interests) is working on a union of research interests in natural areas, as represented by scientific societies, museums, and universities, into an organization to provide needed funds. C. F. Korstian, U. S. Forest Service, Ogden, Utah (chairman, Natural Areas in National Forests) is working on the selection of suitable natural areas which may be set aside within the existing national forest. Those having knowledge of areas preserved suitable for preservation, es

pecially those who have studied special areas, are requested to communicate with V. E. Shelford at once as the list is soon to be completed.

SCIENTIFIC LECTURES AT OTTAWA

MEMBERS of the Department of Mines, Canada, are giving in the auditorium of the Victoria Memorial Museum, Ottawa, lectures as follows:

March 4: "The building of the continent," by D. B. Dowling, geologist.

March 11: "The anthropological field in Canada,'' by Dr. Edward Sapir, anthropologist.

March 25: "Zoological work in Canada," by R. M. Anderson, zoologist.

April 8: "A recent chapter in the geological his

tory of Canada" (illustrated with slides of the Greenland Ice Cap), by Edward M. Kindle, paleontologist.

February 12: "The fur-bearing animals of Canada," by Clyde L. Patch.

February 19: "The birds of Bonaventure Island'' (with motion pictures), by Clyde L. Patch. February 26: "The Canadian Arctic coast,'' by K. G. Chipman.

March 5: "Wanderings with the Eskimo," by D. Jenness.

March 12: "Roads to wealth in our northern forest, or mineral development in northern Ontario” (with motion pictures), by T. L. Tanton. March 19: "Hunting giant dinosaurs in the Badlands of Alberta," by Charles M. Sternberg. March 26: "Ottawa three times submerged and how we know it'' (with motion pictures), by M. E. Wilson.

April 2: "Conquering the desert with irrigation"' (with motion pictures), by Harlan I. Smith. April 9: "Asbestos or fireproof cotton" (with motion pictures), by R. Harvie.

April 16: "My summer among the Ojibwa Indians," by F. W. Waugh.

April 23: The frogs, salamanders and snakes of Ottawa," by Clyde L. Patch.

THE RESIGNATION OF PROFESSOR FLINT

YALE UNIVERSITY announces the resignation on account of poor health of Dr. Joseph Marshall Flint, professor of surgery since 1907, to take effect at the close of the present university year. Dr. Flint is planning to go to

his home in California after commencement. The following resolutions have been passed by the faculty of the medical school:

The faculty of medicine have learned with deep regret of the resignation of Dr. Joseph Marshall Flint from the chair of surgery, which he has so ably and faithfully filled since 1907.

Coming to this university with a broad and thorough scientific training, and with high ideals, Dr. Flint became the original full-time professor, and has done great service both by precept and by example, in upholding high standards of teaching, research and practise.

He has always shown great tenacity of purpose and devotion to principle. Whatever success the Yale School of Medicine may have in the future will have been made possible by the loyalty and steadfastness of Dr. Flint and Dr. Blumer, whose joint service at a time of great stress succeeded in tiding over the crisis that economic conditions and new developments in medical education had brought

on.

The faculty desire to place on record their high appreciation of Dr. Flint's services to the university, to the nation and to science, and to express their keen sense of loss at his leaving. They wish him full and speedy recovery of health and a large measure of success in his future work.

THE INTERNATIONAL UNION OF RADIO

TELEGRAPHY

AN American Section of the International Union of Scientific Radio Telegraphy has been formed and has adopted a constitution which provides:

1. The American Section of the International Union of Scientific Radio Telegraphy shall consist of an executive committee and of the members of the technical committees provided for in paragraphs 2 and 3 below.

2. The executive committee of the American Section shall consist of the chairmen of the divisions of physical sciences and of engineering of the National Research Council (ex officio); one member each of the following: The Army, the Navy, the Department of Commerce, the Institute of Radio Engineers; four members at large to be appointed by the president of the National Academy of Sciences; and (ex officio) officers of the International Union of Scientific Radio Telegraphy resiIdent in the United States.

3. The duties of the executive committee shall be: To act as the representatives of the United States in the International Union of Scientific Radio Telegraphy in the interim between its regular meetings; to organize the American Section, including its technical committees, and to arrange for a meeting of the American Section shortly preceding each regular meeting of the International Union; to select delegates to the meetings of the Union; and in general to deal with all scientific radio questions involving the participation of the United States. The chairman of the executive committee of the American Section shall be a member (ex officio) of the Division of Foreign Relations of the National Research Council.

The first officers of the section are:
Chairman, Louis W. Austin.

Corresponding secretary, Augustus Trowbridge, chairman, division of physical sciences, National Research Council (ex officio).

Technical secretary, J. H. Dellinger.

Executive committee, Louis W. Austin, U. S. Navy; Comfort A. Adams, chairman, division of engineering, National Research Council; E. F. W. Alexanderson, Radio Corporation of America; J. H. Dellinger, Bureau of Standards; Alfred H. Goldsmith, editor, Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers; F. B. Jewett, Western Electric Company; A. E. Kennelly, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Major-General G. O. Squier, chief signal officer, U. S. A.; Lieutenant-Commander A. Hoyt Taylor, U. S. Navy; Augustus Trowbridge.

The following have been appointed chairmen of technical committees:

Committee on Static, Dr. Austin.

Committee on Transmission, Dr. Kennelly. Committee on Physics of the Electron Tube, Dr. Jewett.

Committee on Radio Interference (not yet appointed).

SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS DR. C. L. ALSBERG, chief of the Bureau of Chemistry of the United States Department of Agriculture, has been appointed director of the Food Research Institute which is to be established at Stanford University by the Carnegie Corporation. He will assume his new work on July 1.

DR. EDWARD LAURENS MARK, for forty-four years instructor and professor of zoology and anatomy at Harvard University, will retire from active teaching at the close of this year and has been appointed Hersey professor of anatomy emeritus.

DR. ROBERT F. RUTTAN, head of the department of chemistry, McGill University, has been appointed to succeed Dr. Duncan G. MacCallum, as administrative chairman of the Advisory Council for Scientific and Industrial Research in Canada.

DR. CHARLES W. RICHARDSON received the honorary degree of doctor of science recently from the George Washington University.

THE University of Cambridge has awarded its doctorate of laws to Sir Patrick Manson, of the London School of Tropical Medicine, and Dr. Albert Calmette, of the Paris Pasteur Institute.

SIR W. H. BRAGG has been elected president of the London Physical Society. The vicepresidents who have filled the office of president are Dr. C. Chree, Professor H. L. Callendar, Professor R. B. Clifton, Sir Richard Glazebrook, Sir Oliver J. Lodge, Professor C. H. Lees, Professor A. W. Reinold, Sir Arthur Schuster, Sir J. J. Thomson and Professor C. V. Boys.

We learn from Nature that the twenty-fifth anniversary of the discovery of the "Zeeman effect" will take place on October 31 next. A committee has been formed by scientific men in Holland to mark the occasion by showing their appreciation of the importance of the discovery and of the distinguished services which Professor Zeeman has rendered to science. It is intended to raise a fund to be placed at his disposal for researches to be conducted in the physical laboratory of the University of Amsterdam.

MR. GEORGE L. HARRINGTON recently returned from South America, where he had been engaged in private work, and resumed work in the Alaskan Division of the U. S. Geological Survey. He has now returned to South America.

SIR G. SIMS WOODHEAD has retired from the editorship of the Journal of Pathology and Bacteriology, which he founded in 1893, and is succeeded by Drs. A. E. Boycott and H. R. Dean.

THE Brown Chapter of Sigma Xi held its initiation and banquet on March 4. Two members of the faculty, four graduate students and seventeen members of the senior class were elected members. The speaker at the banquet was Dr. Oscar Riddle, of the Cold Spring Biological Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution.

DR. ARTHUR F. COCA, of the medical school of Cornell University, editor of the Journal of Immunology, gave an address on Hypersensitiveness before a recent meeting of the University of Kansas chapter of Sigma Xi. Dr. Coca had been studying, for a few weeks. previous, the hypersensitiveness of Indian students of Haskell Institute of Lawrence.

SIR NORMAN MOORE, president of the Royal College of Physicians, has appointed Dr. Herbert Spencer to deliver the Harveian oration in October and Dr. Michael Grabham, of Madeira, to deliver the Bradshaw lecture in November. Dr. Major Greenwood will deliver the Milroy lectures in 1922.

SHERBURNE WESLEY BURNHAM, professor of practical astronomy at the University of Chicago from 1902 to his retirement in 1914 and astronomer at the Yerkes Observatory, died on March 11, in his eighty-third year.

PROFESSOR CHARLES H. FERNALD, from 1886 to 1910 professor of zoology and entomology at the Massachusetts Agricultural College, and for several years director of the graduate

DR. WILLIAM FISKE WHITNEY, John Barnard Swett Jackson curator of the Warren Anatomical Museum of Harvard University, died at his home in Boston on March 4, in the seventy-first year of his age.

DR. JOSEPH RANSOHOFF, professor of surgery at the University of Cincinnati, died on March 10.

WILHELM VON WALDEYER, professor of anatomy at the University of Berlin, has died at the age of eighty-five years.

THE deaths are announced of William Odling, lately professor of chemistry at Oxford University, and of Robert Bellamy Clifton, lately professor of experimental philosophy. Dr. Odling was ninety-one years of age, and Dr. Clifton eighty-five years of age.

Ar a meeting of the council of the American Mathematical Society held on February 26, 1921, it was voted to accept the invitation of the American Association for the Advancement of Science to become one of the scientific societies affiliated with the association. According to the arrangements for the affiliation of scientific societies with the American Association all members of the newly affiliated society, who are not already members of the association, have the privilege of becoming members of the association without the payment of the usual entrance fee.

THE United States Civil Service Commission announces an examination for the position of superintendent and director of biological stations in the service of the United States Bureau of Fisheries. Applicants will be rated chiefly upon education and experience. Two vacancies for the above named position now exist in the Bureau of Fisheries, one at Beaufort, N. C., carrying a salary of $1,500 per annum, and one at Key West, Florida, with a salary of $1,800. In each case the additional increase granted by Congress of $20 per month is allowed, and living quarters, unfurnished, are available, free of cost to the appointee. There are opportunities for promotions to