results are expected and even demanded. In purchasing laboratory equipment for research it has indeed happened sometimes, so I am told, that research apparatus has been purchased under the false pretense that it was needed in teaching! If botanical research is one of our responsibilities as botanists, I submit that this anomaly demands some serious attention.

The other striking characteristic of much of our scientific research is this, that most of the published work appears to be done by apprentices. I refer to publications by beginners, like dissertations for the doctorate of philosophy in our universities. I can think of no other line of important human activity in which the work of apprentices looms so large as it does in botanical and other sciences. This state of affairs would not be so bad if the leaders under whose guidance the work has been done could take enough part in it to save the publications from the verge of futility. As would be expected of apprentice work, these publications frequently show poor planning and more frequently poor interpretation. The gathering of data may be well done, within the limits set by the plans. There seem to be some possible ways out of this difficulty, but I shall not take time here to mention even the ones I have had in mind.-I turn now to my three phases or aspects of research.

(a) The Planning of Research.-It has seemed to me that the planning of scientific investigation deserves very much more attention than it generally receives. Not having any clear aims, we are apt to be misled to the erroneous idea that all sorts of research are of equal importance. Perhaps it is not. any longer fashionable to tell students that the mere gathering of facts in any field constitutes valuable scientific work, but we surely have not passed far beyond the conception that a personal and capricious interest is a proper and respectable guide in the choosing of a problem and in determining how it is to be carried out. It often seems that each worker brings forward his contributions without any notion as to how they are to fit into the struc

ture of the science as a whole. It is somewhat as though each of us brought what he happened to have and threw it on a large and heterogeneous pile, hoping that a rational structure might, by some unknown means, be builded therefrom. We seem to feel little or no responsibility in the building itself, we bring contributions that can not be used at present and we let the building operations stop at many points because we do not bring the materials that are immediately needed.

A well-selected problem does not always mean a well-planned investigation, however; and an opportune problem has often led to great waste of time and work simply because the method of attack was hurriedly decided upon. As you have surely observed, experimental and observational investigation, as it is published, frequently shows what almost seems to be a genius for omitting the needed experimental controls. Again, things that are of relatively small importance are often dwelt on with great care, while the most outstanding points are woefully neglected. Needs that should have been cared for in the preliminary plan are often not appreciated until the experimental or observational work is completed, when it is too late to mend matters.

I have been led to think that this condition of affairs is largely due to a still more or less prevalent and very insidious fallacy, to the effect that a scientific investigator can not hope to find out what he sets out to find out, but has to drift with winds and currents and gather in the observations and results that he happens to run across. It is sometimes the business of a pioneer explorer to work in this way, but I think we should hardly call that sort of work scientific research in the modern sense. Discoveries of facts may be made now and then by chance and intuition, but discoveries of relations (with which our science now mostly deals) are largely to be made by taking serious thought as to just what we need to do in order to find out just what we set about finding out.

You have been warned earlier in this address of the fact that I regard cooperation as the touchstone by which we may hope to cure,

or at least alleviate, many of our scientific ills, and you will at once see that our selection of problems and our planning of projected investigations would be greatly improved if cooperation between competent thinkers were more in vogue. If every projected research involving considerable expenditure of money and energy might be submitted to several competent workers, with the request that they make suggestions, I have no doubt that much more valuable and feasible plans might result. It strikes one as a curious fact that scientific investigators wish to keep their work secret until it is finished (as they may fondly suppose), after which they are just as strong in their wish to present it to their colleagues. The results of investigation are frequently treated like Christmas gifts; they are planned and made in secret and handed to the recipients only after alterations are well-nigh impossible! And, finally, to complete the anomaly, the investigator is often sorely pained if his contribution proves to be very imperfect or even quite unacceptable! One wishes to ask why it would not be better to obtain the adverse criticism before the work was finished," rather than to wait until after publication; the criticism will eventually be forthcoming in any event and it should be much more useful if it were made available early in the investigation. In so far as in us lies, we should avoid wasting our own time and facilities and those of our colleagues.

As I have emphasized elsewhere, it ought to be of enormous value to botanical science if some organization (perhaps the National Research Council) might publish yearly a list of what seem to be important and promising and feasible problems for botanical investigation, with elaborated plans. My imagination pictures this list as rather long, including all sorts of projects, sent in by numerous thinkers who have the well-being of their science really at heart, and I should expect it to alter from year to year, as projects get undertaken and results are obtained. It would be a fine thing if each society of research workers were to take upon itself the responsibility of furnishing such a series of proposals. This

should be accompanied by a usable bibliography of each problem, and mention should be made of investigators who might be engaged in this sort of work.

If this dream might come true such an annual publication might do more toward giving us a rather clear picture of the aims and trend of our science than could be secured from any other simple form of organized cooperative effort.

(b) The Procuring of Data.-After a research problem has been selected and properly planned, the securing of the requisite observational or experimental data is a matter of comparatively little difficulty. This is the easiest part of investigation and many publications consist of but little more than tabulations or lists of the data secured, without serious attempt to exhibit either plan or interpretation. This phase of research requires special attention less than do the other two and I need not dwell here upon it. I may suggest, however, that when practical difficulties arise during the progress of a piece of experimental or observational work, it would be well for the investigator to call upon some of his competent colleagues for advice, and it would also be well for the rapid advance of our science if the persons thus asked might respond in a wholehearted sort of way. Let it be remembered in this connection that botany is a world science and that its advance is not to be accelerated through the usual operation of institutional or individual rivalries and jealousies. Such motives may have value if rationally controlled, but they do not appear generally to result in the building up of an esprit du corps among scientists.

(c) The Interpretation and Presentation of Results.-It frequently follows that a good plan systematically carried out gives results that are largely interpreted by the plan itself. If a quarryman cuts an ashlar expressly for a certain position in a wall it is not necessary for him to explain to the builder just what is to be done with it when it is delivered. But the case is not nearly always so simple as this when complicated problems are under investigation. And most biological problems are still

so complicated (largely because they are chosen to embrace too large a field in each case) that special effort is required to find out what may be the meanings of the data at hand.

It appears that comparatively few writers take the trouble to interpret their results in anything like a logically complete manner. Our interpretations are generally hurried and are apt to be biased. Out of a large number of logically possible conclusions we are apt to state but one and to pretend that the facts support this hypothesis more than the others. Indeed, we usually write our discussion from the standpoint of a single one out of several or many logically possible hypotheses. The general result is that cur literature abounds in published data which are either uninterpreted or illogically or incompletely interpreted. One of the greatest wastes in biological research lies, to my mind, in the publication of so many uninterpreted observations. To the beginner in research it may seem that a grateful science should be willing to interpret these data if the writer will just present them, but this is found not to occur in practise. As a general rule, if an author does not interpret his own results they remain uninterpreted and are finally lost in the maze of the literature; most active investigators do not like to attempt the study of the logical possibilities suggested by results obtained by some one else, especially as the plan followed in obtaining such results is apt to have been different from what the second investigator might wish to employ. It were better if we performed far fewer experiments and devoted much more time and energy and care to logical planning and thorough interpretations of the results we secure.

Just as in the case of choosing and planning an investigation, so in the case of interpreting observational and experimental data, several brains are preferable to one, and cooperation is greatly to be desired. It seems highly desirable, indeed, that several competent minds might be asked to make suggestions regarding any research, at several times, from its inception to the publication of the resulting contribution. If some of our critics might be asked to criticize our papers before they are published, a great many mistakes and

misunderstandings might be avoided and a good deal of personal jealousy and righteous or unrighteous indignation-both of which waste energy and time and money-might be prevented. Some of the standing committees of the Ecological Society of America have arranged for this sort of pre-publication criticism and it promises to be a valuable feature in raising the standard of research publication. Responsibilities toward Applied Botanical Science.-In working over the mass of botanical knowledge that has already been obtained, for the purpose of presenting it to others, and also in selecting lines along which research is to be undertaken, we shall fail very seriously in the discharge of our responsibility unless we give special attention to the scientific and philosophical aspects of the application of our science to all the various needs of man.

In

a former publication2 I have emphasized the fact that what is now commonly called applied science does not include nearly all of the applications of scientific knowledge. I take it that the term applied botany means to most of us practical applications in the arts, which serve the physical, esthetic and even the spiritual needs of mankind. Here belong agriculture, forestry, pharmacognosy, floriculture, such arts as dyeing, tanning, spinning, cooking, brewing (I believe there are still breweries somewhere in the world!), and many other important branches of human activity. These may be called practical applications, because they supply material things that are in demand and consequently have pronounced commercial value.

But there is another kind of application that is very important but that may not properly be called practical. I mean those applications that satisfy the intellectual or mental needs of mankind. Thus, chemistry, physics and climatology are applied in botanical science, and this science is in turn applied in chemistry, climatology, geology, psychology, philosophy, and so forth. In default of a better term I may call these philosophical applications. Here also belong the applications of one branch of our science to another branch, as 2 Johns Hopkins University Circular, March, 1917.

when anatomy is applied in physiology, or when physiology is applied in ecology. While the philosophical applications of botany do not "take the eye and have the price" as do its practical applications, yet their value is universally acknowledged to be exceedingly great. They should not be left out of account in our proposals for a renewed mobilization of botanical scientists.

A consideration of these two groups of applications, called here the practical and the philosophical, will furnish a wealth of suggestions for research projects. It is the business of botanical scientists to supply all knowledge about plants that may be enquired for in behalf of any line of human activity. If we do not possess a certain kind of knowledge demanded by an art or another science, surely it is our responsibility to make the needed knowledge by research, and to do so as promptly after the need arises as is possible. Looked at in this way, the prevalent conception of botany as a composite of two different kinds of science, "pure" and " applied," is seen to strike very wide of the mark. In many ways it is to be regretted that many arts that employ applied science have come to be themselves called sciences, thus creating great confusion, but it were hopeless to try now to correct such illogical usages as those of agricultural science, medical science, veterinary science and the like. Agriculture, for example, is not a science, but an art, and whatever of science it employs is applied from botany, zoology, geology, climatology and so forth. (Of course it is understood that if plant physiology or the physiology of the wheat plant is regarded as a part of botany, so must animal physiology and the physiology of man be considered as a part of zoology.)

We are probably all in agreement as to the proposition that by far the greater portion of future botanical investigation will have to do with supplying botanical knowledge to the arts of agriculture, forestry and medicine-and the greatest of these is agriculture. Other speakers at these meeting will probably emphasize the scientific needs of this art-which they may call a science and I need not here go farther in this connection.

If you agree with me that some of our greatest responsibilities have to do with the supplying of knowledge needed by the arts and the other sciences, and if you also agree that much of our advance is to come through cooperation, it naturally follows that botanical scientists must cooperate not only among themselves but also with workers in other sciences and in the arts.

In conclusion of this address, which may already be too long, I shall not attempt to summarize the various points and suggestions to a somewhat awkward presentation of which you have so kindly and patiently listened. I have voiced a longing for a conscious cooperation among scientists that has been felt by all of us, and I have placed before you a few suggestions as to some paths along which we may hope to proceed toward the realization of this desire. This address lays no claim to logical completeness but I think I may claim for it that it is facing in the right direction. We surely need to appreciate our responsibilities as botanists toward humanity and to take conscious steps toward the organization of rational compaigns against the demons of ignorance and superstition and waste. Now is the time of times, the "zero hour"; let us assume our responsibilities and do our share in the reorganization of human life for the new day that approaches. And let us not get in each other's way nor in the way of other groups of workers. We would give once again to botanical science her "place in the sun," but we would not do this by interposing any hindrances in the paths of the other sciences, with which we have no quarrels. Finally, we would accelerate the growth and unification and organization of our national science, not that we may excel in a national way (with a sort of colossal selfishness of an all-too-common type), but that we may serve world science to our utmost, thus gaining the supreme satisfaction of having appreciated our responsibilities and borne them in such manner as to receive, at last, our own approval.

BURTON EDWARD LIVINGSTON

THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY

INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH IN ONTARIO AND PRUSSIA COMPARED THOSE who treat lightly the industrial research of this continent and lavish overdue praise on the research of Germany do not use a standard of measurement-a unit of population in the present case- -for the comparison, which through the omission becomes a mere arbitrary opinion. A common example of this laxity is the remark of one who was speaking of the United States and Canada: "Progress along advanced industrial lines has not hitherto paralleled that of Germany." Scrutiny of the statements of such writers on industrial research always fails to show any trace of a standard used in their comparisons, and it is with a view to supply what they omit that the following particulars are compiled:

In 1909 the Ontario government commissioned Dr. John Seath to report upon industrial education, and the report he submitted ("Education for Industrial Purposes "), bearing date 1911, contains some of the latest statistics on technical education before the war, and also contains incidentally some information on the allied subject of industrial research. In particular, he gives a list (p. 161) of the thirty-three technical "schools" of university rank in Prussia which are in a position to undertake research work. This list for Prussia has more details than the similar list in the "Encyclopædia Britannica " (1910-11), which relates to the whole of Germany. The Prussian list consists of the following: nine technical schools, or polytechnica, of which the one at Charlottenburg is the chief example; three mining academies; five forest academies; four agricultural academies; five veterinary "high schools"; five commercial "high schools"; two schools of art.

Junior industrial schools and technical schools of the middle class, the former with state contributions of 38 per cent., the latter with 54 per cent., were educational, not research institutions, and did little work in research, compared with those of university rank given above. If, therefore, we add to this list of 33, the nine medical schools, which are connected with universities in Prussia,

and which are doing the public laboratory work-omitting the literary faculties of law, divinity and philosophy in the universities, which are negligible in an enquiry relating to science we get a complete census of the 42 Prussian institutions that do advanced research work. On a basis of population of 42 millions then in Prussia, we find one such institution for every million people.

Next, consider the case of Ontario, where, as in Prussia, such institutions are mainly provincial or state, and not federal. Following the same order, Ontario has: two schools of applied science and engineering ("polytechnica"); two mining schools doing assay work for the mining industries; one forestry school; one agricultural college at Guelph, doing research for the past forty years (the Ottawa college being federal). The bulletins and reports from Guelph have numbered several thousands. One veterinary college, established in 1862 as a private enterprise when there were very few on this continent, and taken over by the government of Ontario in 1908. Three laboratories, the central at Toronto, with branches at Kingston and London, Ontario, viz., one at each medical college, doing public analysis like those of the Prussian medical colleges. (The federal laboratory at Ottawa deals with adulterations.) One meteorological research observatory for industries, and especially for agriculture and the shipping industries. It is now supported by federal funds but was originally a local institution in Toronto. (The agricultural academies attend to this line of research in Prussia, the meteorological institute in Berlin being mainly a collecting point.)

This aggregate of eleven government institutions of research for the industries of Ontario, on the basis of two and three quarter millions of population at the outbreak of the war, makes a total of four per million people, or four times the number in Prussia for the same unit of population (one million). In making this comparison where the number of institutions of research for the industries is the criterion, there is no separation of research for specific problems from research for