The Popular Science Monthly 1914-07: Vol 85

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. JULY, 1914 MAN AND THE MICROBE By Prormssor C,-B. A. WINSLOW THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY, NEW YORK A CASE of measles or typhoid fever is not only a most unpleasant kind of practical problem, but a natural history phenomenon of a mysterious and interesting sort, Here is a person who wakes up ap- parently well and goes about his daily tasks as usual. Gradually he is conscious of some strange clog in the machine, a dragging of the wheels, such as we experience when a carriage passes from a good road into a sandy by-way. Pains and aches begin to be felt in head and back. The general weakness increases, and, with or without a sharp chill, the pa- tient gives up and takes to bed. Fever has set in. The vigorous and active human animal of the morning has been changed in a few hours to a mere wreck of his former self. What has happened? What subtle force has produced so sudden and mysterious a catastrophe? The later history of such an attack is almost as remarkable as its in- ception. Most diseases go on and grow worse unless something definite is done to remove their exciting cause. If, however, your measles or typhoid patient be let alone, or only protected by hygienic precautions against certain secondary results, 99 times out of 100 in the case of measles, and 9 times out of 10 in the case of typhoid fever, he will get well. These are “self-limited ” diseases, to use the old expressive term. They run a course of so many days or weeks, and then, unless death or some complication supervenes, there is a steady progressive recovery. The temperature falls, the mind clears, the strength returns, the patient is as he was before, with one important exception, that he is now, to a greater or less extent, and for a longer or shorter time, resistant or immune against the particular malady from which he has suffered. Think what a curious phenomenon this really is, divested of the cloak of familiarity with which it is commonly invested. What sort of strange process goes on in the body, which has a definite cycle like the life of an animal, fulfils its appointed round, and then draws to a close, leaving only the impress of immunity to mark its passage. 274653

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY Nor is this all. There is another characteristic of this particular group of diseases, which is quite as remarkable as thuse associated with their inception and their cyclical course. They are catching, contagious, infectious, communicable. They do not occur singly, but spread from person to person, as flame leaps from tree to tree in a forest. The degree to which this quality is manifest varies widely. When measles was first carried to the unprotected inhabitants of the Faroe Islands, it spread indeed, like wildfire, to almost every person. When smallpox is brought into an unvaccinated community the same thing happens to-day. In other communicable diseases, like tuberculosis and typhoid fever, the transfer of infection is less inevitable and less direct. In all the maladies of this type, however, the same principle obtains. The disease neither originates within the patient nor comes, in the last analysis, from any influence of earth or water or air. It arises ultimately in every instance from a previous case of the same disease, from a specific spark of the same conflagation. To the primitive mind, deeply tinged with anthropomorphism, the natural explanation of all disease was sought in the evil influence of a demon or other supernatural power. The plagues and pestilences in par- ticular were punishments inflicted upon a people for their sins. There was no possibility of escaping such visitations except by the dubious ex- pedient of flight; no hope except in the relaxation of the celestial anger of Which they were the sign. As Defoe says of the cessation of the plague in London: Nothing but the immediate finger of God, nothing but Omnipotent Power could have done it. The contagion despised all medicine; death raged in every corner; and had it gone on as it did then, a few weeks more would have cleared the town of all and everything that had a soul. Men everywhere began to de- spair; every heart failed them for fear; people were made desperate through the anguish of their souls, and the terrors of death sat in the very faces and coun- tenance of the people. The modern view that disease is not a divine infliction, but a natural phenomenon, with natural causes, which may be progressively grasped and controlled by the steady and disciplined activity of the human mind, we owe first to the wonderful nation whose genius came to its flower on the sea-girt promontories and islands of the Augean twenty centuries ago. Of all our debts to Greece there is none greater than this, that the Greeks, first of all western nations, sought to find a natural rather than a supernatural explanation of the phenomena in the world about them, They often failed to find it, as was inevitable in the absence of the mass of observations needed for good induction. They fell back on poetic abstraction, almost as fanciful as the demons of their savage forefathers ; in the case of the causation of disease, for example, upon the theory of the four humors developed to a position of commanding influence by Galen. Yet the great fact remained that whether the explanations of the

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MAN AND THE MICROBE 7 Greeks were scientific or not, they aimed to be scientific, and they firmly implanted along with all their error, a zeal for the scientific truth about nature and a confident belief in the possibility of its ultimate attainment. From Hippocrates down to our own times, then, we find that the ex- planation of diseases of all kinds has been sought by scientific men, not in the activities of spiritual beings, but in the workings of natural law. Results were almost nil, however, so far as the communicable diseases are concerned, until the nineteenth century when a sudden and rich fruition took place here, as in all fields of the biological sciences, as a result of a simple mechanical discovery, the lens-maker’s trick of the achromatic objective, which made possible the modern high power microscope and revealed all at once a new and stupendous world— “The world of the infinitely little.” . It is true that Leeuwenhoek and other early naturalists had seen the microbes with their primitive simple lenses. It is true that still earlier, in the sixteenth century, the Veronese physician, Fracastorius conceived the communicable diseases as due to “ seminaria contagionum,” minute particles capable of reproduction in appropriate media and having many of the attributes we know to be characteristic of the bacteria to-day. The Roman author Varro, in writing on the choice of sites for a farm house cautions the builder against the neighborhood of swampy ground “ be- cause certain minute animals, invisible to the eye, breed there, and borne by the air, reach the inside of the body by way of the mouth and nose, and cause diseases which are difficult to get rid of.” Nevertheless, so far as any scientific demonstration of their nature was concerned, the communicable diseases remained as much a mystery in 1800 as in 400 B.C. It was the achromatic objective, perfected about 1840, which first re- vealed the ubiquity of microbic life and its special richness in connection with the processes of fermentation and decay; and it was of profound moment in the history of medicine and sanitation when Pasteur proved, against the opposition and the ridicule of the great Liebig and a host of lesser critics, that fermentation was the result of the action of microbes, little living things which entered into the fermentable fluids and grew and multiplied there, the fermentation being the result of their powerful chemical secretions. The “little leaven that leaveneth the whole lump” was shown to be a self-propagating plant, andthe many desirable and obnoxious decompositions to which sugary fluids are sub- ject, each the result of a special microbe, The analogy between fermentation and disease must have sprung into many minds, with the hope that the solution of the latter problem too might be found by the study of microscopic life. It was again Pasteur who by his rigid experimental method extracted the truth from the mass of good and bad guesses of those who had preceded him. In his study of the disease which threatened to wipe out the great silkworm

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8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY industry of France, he again applied his microscope to the task, demon- strated the presence of living corpuscles in the bodies of the moths, whose offspring later succumbed to the disease, and saved the silk cultivators by @ quarantine based on the destruction of eggs from such infected parents. In his later studies of anthrax and chicken cholera, he demon- strated that diseases of the higher animals too were due to specific microbes; and with his work and its extension by Robert Koch the mystery which for centuries had shrouded the communicable diseases was at last solved. Each case of sickness of this kind is a definite infection with a specific microscopic germ, which grows in the body as a mold grows in a jar of jelly and in its growth produces chemical poisons, which cause the weakness, pain, fever, delirium and the other manifesta- tions of disease. The self-limited nature of such maladies is due, as Pasteur too showed, to the fact that the body cells react against the in- vaders in a specific and purposeful manner, which, if they finally tri- umph, leads to a more or less lasting state of immunity. The spread of communicable disease in the community is no longer a “ pestilence that walketh in darkness,” but the transfer in tangible ways of a small but definite animal or plant; and its control can be confidently looked for from the study of the life histories of these microscopic organisms and the working out of practical methods which shall prevent them from gaining access to our bodies. The communicable diseases are merely striking examples of the more general biological phenomenon of parasitism described by Swift in the famous and often misquoted lines: So naturalists observe, a flea Has smaller fleas that on him prey; ‘And these have smaller still to bite ’em me - ‘And so proceed ad infinitum. ie ould be remembered that the word parasite was first coined for members of the human species. The parasite in Grecian times was the one who “sat beside” the great man, the hanger-on in the palace of the prince, who gained a precarious living at the expense of his complaisant host. We may hope that the type is less common in modern times and it is fair to remember that in the microbic world, as in our own, the para- site is an exception rather than the rule. The great majority of the bacteria are honest, industrious, useful citizens, who ripen our cream and butter and cheese, make our vinegar and lactic acid, dispose of our waste materials and play a most important part in maintaining the fertility of the soil. The tubercle bacillus and the malaria germ, like the thief and the murderer are perverted individual representatives of a generally sound stock, There is another very important point of resemblance between the disease germ and the human parasite. Just as the man who has learned to live at the expense of society soon loses the capacity to do an honest

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MAN AND THE MICROBE 9 day’s work and would starve if left to his own resources, so the microbic parasites in adapting themselves to live at the expense of their human host have lost the capacity to gain a living in the world outside. They have been so modified in the course of evolution as to thrive in the rich warm fluids of the body and perish outside of it. If a hundred typhoid germs are discharged into a lake their fate is much the same as that of a hundred men under the same conditions, A few of the men may be good swimmers and a few may be lucky enough to cling to floating planks. Most die very quickly, however, and in the course of time all will surely perish. So with most disease germs in water or soil or anywhere outside the body. Certain pathogenic microbes may actually multiply in suitable media, in milk for example. As a rule, however, there is a steady de- crease, rapid at first and slower afterward, but inevitably leading to extinction in a comparatively short period. We read of disease germs persisting in dust or ice for several months, and a very few may some- times do so. Quantitative studies show, however, that the survivors are few indeed and that the danger from such remote infection is practically negligible. In the case of water, which has been more carefully studied than any other medium, we know, for example, that in a period of two or three weeks even gross infection will be removed by the natural mortality of the microbes. Dr. Houston, of London, who has done some of the most important work upon this subject, has repeatedly demonstrated his confidence in his results by drinking halfpint portions of water, merely kept in bottles for a few weeks in the laboratory after infection with millions of typhoid bacilli. Both bacteriological and epidemiological evidence indicates very clearly that it is only fresh, recent infectious material which plays an important part in the transmission of com- municable disease. This conclusion is one of the most important fruits of recent sanitary research ; for it focuses attention sharply upon the human being, the original source of virulent disease germs, rather than upon vague and obscure miasms of the earth and air. It is people, primarily, and not things that we must guard against. Certain media, like milk and water, are important agents in the transfer of infection from person to person. Others, like air and dust and fomites (books, toys and the like which have been exposed to infection) are known to be far less dangerous than was supposed. Back of all such material agents of transmission, how- ever, lies the human being, and the nearer to this source we get,—the more direct and rapid the transfer,—the greater is the danger. Unfortunately, however, it is not only the obviously sick person who may be a center for the distribution of active disease. Another of the great contributions to sanitary science in the last ten years has been the recognition of the part played by incipient cases and “ carriers,” apparently well persons, who are nevertheless discharging from nose and throat or bowels the virulent germs of disease. Measles, for example,

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10 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY is spread chiefly in its incipient stage, when the child has no other symptom than a slight running at the nose and goes to school or to a party, thinking it has only a cold in the head. The carrier, properly so-called, may be a convalescent, entirely cured so far as his own symptoms are concerned, but still distributing virulent germs. From three to five per cent. of all typhoid cases continue to discharge typhoid bacilli for three months or more after convalescence. A recent milk borne epidemic in New York was due to infection from a carrier who had had typhoid in the West forty-six years before. Malarial infection is very frequently introduced into a community by Italian laborers who have themselves become immune to the parasites they carry, in their own country years before. Finally we have the most striking type of carrier, in which there is no present or past history of active disease at all. The famous cook, Typhoid Mary, for example, caused epidemics in eight different families where she worked, but so far as is known had never suffered herself. Two or three persons in a hundred in any normal population have been found on bacteriological examination to be carriers of the diphtheria bacillus, two or three in a thousand, of the typhoid bacillus. The problem of the carrier is one of the most serious of those which confront us since he is moving about in the world, mixing with others, perhaps taking part in the preparation and handling of food, and so may be proportionately much more dangerous than the sick person who is confined to his bed and under medical care. It is a great step forward, however, to have learned that the human body, of the sick person or the carrier, is the primary source of infec- tion ; that every case of communicable disease is caused by the transfer of infectious material from such a person to a susceptible victim; and that the extent of the danger varies directly with the immediacy of the transfer. As this conception has been worked out in detail it has become clear that many of the supposed dangers of the pre-scientific period were of altogether minor import. To the older sanitarian the atmosphere was full of vague dangers, but its part in the spread of disease is now known to be exceedingly limited. In the immediate vicinity of a sick person or a carrier the air is infected by fine spray thrown out of the mouth in coughing, sneezing or loud speaking; but this is really a form of contact, not a general infection of the atmos- phere. The mouth spray is a sort of rain which falls quickly to the ground, where it dries and the disease germs perish. It is true that dust collected from the surface in streets and rooms contains vast numbers of harmless germs and occasionally some disease-producing types. I am myself of the opinion that there may be real danger in breathing in such gross quantities of dust as one sometimes encounters in a dirty street on.a windy day. This again, however, like the mouth spray, is an occasional and local pollution. Bacteriological studies, such as those carried on last winter in the New York schools, show that

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MAN AND THE MICROBE II quiet indoor air contains comparatively few microbes of any kind and is singularly free from germs of human origin. So strong is the evidence of the insignificance of aerial infection that in some of the most modern hospitals, cases of various contagious diseases have been treated with perfect success in open wards, provided, of course, that the most rigid precaution be taken to prevent the direct transfer of infec- tious material by the hands and clothing of attendants. One of the most striking examples of the exorcism of a bogey of the older sanitation by modern exact methods is the case of sewer gas. Dreaded as a prime spreader of disease ever since sewerage began, we now know that sewer and drain air is freer from microbes than the air of a city street, and that the microbes which are present are of the same harmless type in the two cases. From a careful series of experiments in Boston, it was calculated that if one placed the mouth over a house drain and breathed the drain air continuously for twenty-four hours the number of intestinal microbes ingested would be less than those taken in in drinking a quart of New York water, as it was before routine disinfection of the supply was introduced. Disease germs do not enter the household through the sewer pipes or by flying in at the windows (unless borne on the wings of insects). They are not to any important extent brought in on books or toys or clothing, where, if any infection existed, it has mostly dried up and died. They are brought in directly by infected persons (carriers). They are brought in by insects. They are brought in by certain articles of food and drink. These three types of transmission, which have been allitera- tively described as infection by fingers, flies and food, account for ninety nine cases of communicable diseases out of a hundred, and each of them deserves a somewhat more detailed consideration. In order that a given food may be important as an agent in the transmission of disease there are three different conditions which must be met, and it is only in a few instances that all three are met at once. The substance must be exposed to infection, it must be delivered and used promptly and it must be eaten raw. For the great majority of our foods cockery furnishes an effective safeguard and, as has been often pointed out, the sanitary results of this practise must have played an important part in the evolution of the human race. Most processes of cookery destroy the disease germs and their toxins and make it possible to use such foods as the meat from slightly tuberculous animals with entire safety. It is fortunate that this is the case because the ideally healthy animal is as rare as the perfect human being, and the increasing burden of the cost of living makes it essential that we should utilize all food materials which can be consumed with safety. The common practise, in certain European countries, of eating meat only partially cooked often leads there to serious epidemics of meat poisoning, but in America such outbreaks are usually due to subsequent infection of

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12 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY cooked foods which have been improperly handled in the kitchen, rather than to original infectign of the meat before it enters the house- hold. Of the food materials which are eaten raw and might therefore be expected to play an important part in the wholesale transmission of disease, some, like certain fruits, are rendered safe by the fact that they are peeled before being eaten so that the edible portion has never been exposed to infection. Others are protected by the fact that long storage usually intervenes between exposure to pollution and ultimate consump- tion. Thus ice, though often cut on polluted streams, is one of the safest foods, as shown by careful bacteriological and epidemiological studies. Ninety per cent. of the bacteria in the water are thrown out in the physical process of freezing; and in a few weeks ninety-nine per cent. of any disease germs remaining will have perished. Water and milk and raw shellfish are the three foods which in the highest degree fulfill all the requirements of a dangerous disease medium. If water is taken from streams or ponds or wells into which sewage enters, and is used for drinking without adequate storage or purification, the best possible opportunity is offered for a transfer of infection on a gigantic scale. The great epidemics of typhoid fever and cholera which used to sweep through European cities and more recently have continued to ravage American communities, bear eloquent testimony to this fact. With the cheap and effective methods of puri- fying water, by storage, filtration or disinfection, now at our disposal, there is no excuse for the delivery of a public water supply which is not absolutely safe. In uncivilized communities, which persist in using polluted supplies, and in the country where a local well is under sus- picion, the householder may always, however, protect himself by using a Berkefeld or Pasteur filter, either of which types is efficient if prop- erly cared for, or by boiling the water to be used for drinking. Milk is second only to water as an agent in the transmission of dis- ease. It is frequently infected with tubercle germs and sometimes with other pathogenic organisms from the cow. It is contaminated by dirt in the stable, and it is polluted at a dozen different points by the numerous individuals who handle it on its way through the dairy to the consumer. Furthermore, of all foods milk is the one which in some cases apparently permits an actual multiplication of disease germs and an increase in- stead of a diminution of virulence in transit. Epidemics of typhoid fever, diphtheria, scarlet fever and tonsilitis without number have been traced to milk, and to young children even the ordinary germs of decay in milk, aside from infection with specific diseases, are often fatal, as evidenced by the terrible toll of summer diarrhea among infants, which is almost exclusively confined to those fed on cows milk. Carefully protected milk, such as is certified by our medical societies, is of course much freer from danger than the ordinary product, but the history of

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MAN AND THE MICROBE 13 epidemics which have affected the patrons of dairies where every possi- ble precaution was taken shows that no raw milk can be considered a - safe food. For infants, breast milk is the only proper nutriment, but for babies who can not possibly receive a mother’s care, and for older children and adults, we have fortunately a simple and efficient protec- tion in pasteurization. This process, which involves simply the heating of the milk to a temperature of 145° or thereabouts for a period of twenty minutes, represents the application of the saving grace of cook- ery to the food product which of all food products needs it most. Un- like scalding or boiling pasteurization does not alter the taste of milk, and one of the most effective ways of guarding the household against disease is to see that all milk which enters it is properly pasteurized. There is no more excuse for drinking raw cow’s milk than for eating raw beef. A third danger, but far less important than those inherent in water or milk, lies in the consumption of raw shellfish which have been grown, or more commonly fattened (swelled up and made to seem more plump by immersion for a time in brackish water), in tidal estuaries exposed to sewage pollution. Fortunately it appears that during the winter months oysters, at least, enter into a state of practical hibernation, clos- ing their shells and taking in little water from outside. Under such conditions sewage bacteria, already present within the shell, soon die out and the oyster even when taken from polluted waters becomes a comparatively safe source of food. Most of the famous epidemics of typhoid fever caused by shellfish have occurred in the months from September to November, after the eating of raw shellfish begins and before hibernation has set in. The eating of raw or partially cooked shellfish (steamed clams, fried oysters, oyster stew) from unknown sources, particularly in the autumn months, is, however, a dangerous practise until the oyster industry is more thoroughly supervised than at present. Finally, in connection with the transmission of disease by food, the danger of infection of any and all foods in the process of preparation should always be kept in view. If for example, sandwiches are pre- pared by a typhoid carrier, an epidemic is likely to result, as was the case recently in a town of Illinois. I have referred to Mary Mallon, our most famous American case of the carrier in the kitchen. After a brief incarceration by the New York City Health department, this woman was set free and she may now under another name be cooking for some one of the readers of this article. Not only water and milk and shellfish, but meats and vegetables and bread and forks and spoons and tumblers may be infected by a cook or a waitress who is a carrier, and many obscure cases of disease are traceable to this cause. The tragedy of such an occurrence was once personally brought home to me with keenness by the death of one of the most promising

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14 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY young sanitary engineers I have known—a student of mine at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who with many others was infected in a boarding house by a waitress who was nursing another servant ill with typhoid, in the intervals of her regular domestic duties. It is often impossible to prevent such catastrophes, but the danger should be kept in mind and all possible effort made to ascertain the health ante- cedents of those whom we take into our households. The second of the common modes of disease transmission to which I have referred, spread by the agency of insects, is on the whole easier to control and in highly civilized communities is much less important than spread by articles of food. We must bring foods into our homes, and it is often hard to discriminate between the infected and the non-infected. Insects however can be entirely excluded from the household in cities, and may be kept under reasonable control even in the country. The most spectacular triumphs of modern sanitation have been achieved in the war against insect-borne disease and even before their sanitary importance was at all comprehended, rising standards of personal cleanliness, by the elimination of vermin, incidentally caused a marked reduction in diseases of this class. Our medieval ancestors with their rush strewn dining halls and their uncleansed bedding and clothing paid a heavy toll to the insect carriers of disease. Bubonic plague, the terrible Black Death of the Middle Ages, we know to be primarily a disease of the rat, commonly transmitted from rat to man and from man to man by the flea. Two great pandemics of this disease are recorded in history, one beginning in the sixth and the other in the eleventh century. In each case the pandemic started in Asia, spread to Constantinople and then through Europe, to almost all parts of the known world. At the height of the second great pandemic, in the fourteenth century, twenty-five million people—about one fourth of the population of Europe—were swept away and in the London plague year, immortalized by Defoe, 100,000 persons perished. A third great epidemic began in Hongkong in 1894 and again spread in India, kill- ing 6,000,000 people between 1896 and 190%. Since that time infection has spread as far as Australia and Brazil. The rats in certain districts of England and the ground squirrels in California are known to be still infected with the plague bacillus. Yet no epidemics have occurred outside of Asia, simply because the rats and fleas which spread the disease are under control. If we lived in filth, as our forefathers did, there can be no doubt that we should be in the midst of a great world scourge of plague like that of the fourteenth century. So with typhus, or ship, or jail fever, which was one of the serious diseases of Europe and America a hundred years ago. It has now almost disappeared in western Europe and the United States, and its decrease was a mystery until it was shown that the germ is carried by the body louse. Personal cleanliness has automatically wiped out this disease, while typhoid

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MAN AND THE MICROBE . 15 fever, named from its supposed resemblance to typhus, and in olden times a malady of comparatively less importance, remains one of our grave sanitary problems. The only household pest which still generally persists in city and country alike is the house-fly; and the public agitation against this in- sect has grown to such proportions in recent years that we may now look for substantial progress toward its elimination. The fly breeds in horse manure and other deposits of decomposing matter and it is always a carrier of filth, though only incidentally of disease. In paved and sewered cities there is little evidence that the fly is an important factor in disease transmission, but where human excreta are exposed, as in rural districts or cities with badly constructed privy vaults, the opportunity for flies to pick up the germs of typhoid fever and other diseases and carry them to food is so great that the danger becomes serious, particularly of course in the warm climates of our Southern States. During the Spanish War 142 out of every 1,000 of the men in our army camps contracted typhoid fever, and 15 out of every 1,000 died of it; and it was shown that the incidence of the disease was due mainly to careless disposal of excreta and conse- quent facilities for fly transmission. In Jacksonville, Fla., Richmond, Va., and other southern cities remarkable results in the reduction of typhoid and intestinal diseases have been attained by proper disposal of excreta and anti-fly campaigns. It is by no means a simple matter to control the multiplication of house-flies, but everything possible should be done, by trappirg and by the cleaning up of possible breeding places, to reduce their numbers. ~~. The transmission of typhoid fever by insects is, of course, only occasional and incidental, and even plague may at times assume a form in which it is spread directly from man to man by the discharges from the mouth. There is another class of diseases which are carried always and necessarily by insects, the germ passing through certain stages of its life history in man and others in the body of a particular insect host. The most important example in temperate climates is malaria. “Malaria,” the bad air disease, was known to be somehow connected with night exhalations from swampy land and a large amount of curi- ously puzzling information about its prevalence was explained, only when it was shown fifteen years ago that it is transmitted by the bite of a particular mosquito which breeds in swampy pools and along the weed-grown margin of streams. It then became clear that marshlands did indeed cause malaria because their stagnant waters propagated the mosquitoes which carried the malaria germ from man to man. Malaria followed the turning up of the soil, not because emanations were set free in the process, but because digging produces pools of water which breed the insect hosts of the malarial microbe. The practical control of mosquitoes and the consequent elimination of malaria has been et At Sl LAB I PLS eS

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16 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY shown to be quite practicable, in temperate climates at least, by the drainage of marsh lands and the filling or oiling or stocking with fish of the smaller mosquito breeding pools. The third mode of infection, by contact, the more or less direct transfer from person to person, is by far the most important factor in the spread of communicable disease in temperate climates. Malaria is our only important insect-borne disease. Typhoid may sometimes be spread by flies and often by water or milk—diphtheria and scarlet fever and tuberculosis and tonsilitis, sometimes by milk. On the other hand, diphtheria and scarlet fever and tuberculosis and, in cities with good water supplies, even typhoid fever, are all more commonly trans- mitted by contact than in any other way; and contact is practically the sole cause of smallpox, measles, epidemic cerebro-spinal meningitis, influenza, common colds and the venereal diseases. It is in the nose and throat, or on the hands of a human being, that disease germs generally enter our homes, and this sort of infection is obviously most difficult to detect and control. The child infected with measles yet showing no symptoms but those of a simple cold in the head, the person with a “little sore throat” which is the beginning of an attack of diphtheria, the friend who comes in with uncleansed hands to visit the cook after nursing a sister just put to bed with typhoid fever, the visitor who is “ practically all over” whooping cough; these are the dangers against which it is so difficult to guard. « The term contact is a broad one and covers a wide variety of ways in which infective material may be spread from person to person. There are all degrees between such direct contact, as occurs when one person coughs over another person’s hand, and the more remote infec- tion carried by some object which has been recently handled; no abso- lute line can be drawn between what may be infective and what may not. If I handle an apple with infected hands and hand it to you and you eat it, we are dealing with clear and obvious contact. If I put it on the table and you find it and eat it an hour later, the connection is almost as direct, although some of the germs will probably be dead. If twenty-four elapses, most of the infection will be gone; if two weeks, - practically all of it. Objects which are supposed to remain infective after a considerable period of time, are called fomites, and fomites’ infection was once held to be an important factor in the spread of disease. The recent discoveries in regard to the rapid mortality of dis- ease germs outside the body have made it clear, however, that objects are only dangerous when they have recently been exposed to fresh infection. The old stories of toys put away in a closet and causing scarlet fever after a lapse of several years are quite apocryphal. Such mysterious cases as were once explained in this fashion are now more reasonably attributed, and very often definitely traced, to direct contact with an unrecognized carrier case.

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MAN AND THE MICROBE - The danger of contact infection from such gross discharges as the sputum are sufficiently obvious. Material of quite as dangerous a nature is thrown out from the mouth as a fine spray in coughing, sneezing or loud speaking. Furthermore, it is a sad fact that cleanli- ness in a bacteriological sense is a very rare thing and the hands are usually more or less soiled with discharges from the nose and throat. and too often from the intestines as well. Dr. C. V. Chapin, in his classic book, on “ The Sources and Modes of Infection,” has some strik- ing paragraphs which, though not pleasant reading, must be pondered by all who would really understand how communicable disease is spread. Probably the chief vehicle for the conveyance of nasal and oral secretions from one to another is the fingers. If one takes the trouble to watch for a short time his neighbors, or even himself, unless he has been particularly trained in such matters, he will be surprised to note the number of times that the fingers go to the mouth and the nose. Not only is the saliva made use of for a great variety of purposes, and numberless articles are for one reason or another placed in the mouth, but for no reason whatever, and all unconsciously, the fingers are with great frequency raised to the lips or the nose. Who can doubt that if the salivary glands secreted indigo the fingers would continually be stained a deep blue, and who can doubt that if the nasal and oral secretions contain the germs of disease these germs will be almost as constantly found upon the fingers? All successful commerce is reciprocal, and in this universal trade in human saliva the fingers not only bring foreign secretions to the moath of their owner, but there exchanging them for his own, distribute the latter to everything that the hand touches. This happens not once but scores and hundreds of times dur- ing the day’s round of the individual. The cook spreads his saliva on the muffins and rolls, the waitress infects the glasses and spoons, the moistened fingers of the peddler arrange his fruit, the thumb of the milkman is in his measure, the reader moistens the pages of his book, the conductor his transfer tickets, the ‘‘lady’’ the fingers of her glove. Every one is busily engaged in this distribu- tion of saliva, so that the end of each day finds this secretion freely distributed on the doors, window sills, furniture and playthings in the home, the straps of trolley cars, the rails and counter and desks of shops and public buildings, and indeed upon everything that the hands of man touch. What avails it if the pathogens do die quickly? A fresh supply is furnished each day. The control of contact transmission, the breaking of the chain of communication between the infected and the non-infected person, in- volves one or both of two measures. On the one hand, the spread of infective material from sick persons and carriers must be checked, so far as possible, and, on the other hand, the mouths of well persons must be guarded against infective material which, despite all our efforts, will to some extent be distributed in the world about us. The first half of this task involves the recognition of the sources of danger, and is of course greatly complicated by the presence of the unrecognized carriers. Much may be hoped, however, from the development of what may be called the sanitary conscience, the recognition on the part of each man, woman and child of the grave responsibility which he may incur by VOL. LXXXV.—2,

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om ere mei pe at ine an nee nmes. ae PERE re See P Ne AT SESE SSS ta ee eR Oe ne es neem ern fagpreveeiemssenesie eer a eS _rnaneenenreeaseemaresn certian eee te er name 18 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY careless mingling with friends and neighbors when at the beginning or end of an attack of communicable disease. The isolation of even frank cases of the so-called mild diseases is still too often regarded as an unreasonable imposition by the uneducated (and the uneducated are by no means always those of the most limited incomes). We still hear “Every one must have measles and the children might as well have it as soon as possible.” There has seldom been a more cruel superstitution. The children’s diseases, measles, scarlet fever and whooping cough are no light matter. Each one of them kills more victims than smallpox, and in many cities often more than typhoid fever. In New York City in 1912, there were two deaths from smallpox, 500 from typhoid, 671 from measles, 614 from scarlet fever and 18% from whooping cough. Fur- thermore, the seriousness of these maladies decreases directly with the age of a child, so that each year for which an attack may be postponed is so much gained. With the progress of health education in the public schools we may look for the day when the social crime of spreading communicable disease will be realized at its full value, so that it will be recognized as wanton recklessness, not courage, to continue business or social intercourse when “coming down,” half-sick with some as yet undefined but impending disease, and no thoughtful person will hasten to mix with his fellows when possibly still a carrier after an attack. In all these diseases there are two factors, the invading germ and the more or less susceptible host, and even a common cold is often due less to poor vitality than to fresh and virulent infection. Some day, per- haps, responsibility may be felt for the reckless dissemination of even this supposedly mild disease, of which Dr. Rosenau well says in his recent work on “ Preventive Medicine and Hygiene”: “Could the sum total of suffering, inconvenience, sequele and economic loss resulting from common colds be obtained, it would at once promote these infec- tions from the trivial into the rank of the serious diseases.” ‘ It is of course, not essential that “isolation” of an infected person should mean solitary incarceration within four walls. In the Middle Ages the only protection against disease was quarantine, which in its derivative meaning was forty days’ detention of all persons, well or sick. coming from an infected port. With the progress of sanitary science preventive measures have become at the same time more efficient and less irksome. When ships from cholera countries came to our eastern seaports two years ago, only a detention of a day or so was necessary, pending a bacteriological examination of the passengers and detection of the few carriers among them. Isolation of individuals takes the place of quarantine against nations, and a practical isolation may often be effected by simple precautions against the transfer of discharges, with- out interference with human intercourse. Disease germs do not fly across a room to seize on their prey. They are carried by direct mate- rial contact of some sort, by the discharge of mouth spray, by hand

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MAN AND THE MICROBE 19 shaking, by the use of common drinking cups and the like. The careful consumptive, who guards others from his sputum and mouth spray and infected utensils, is no menace to his family and friends. The essential point is that the discharges of the patient and all objects soiled thereby should be freed from living germs before they infected others. This is no easy task, as you will realize if you seriously try to carry it out. The common cold offers an excellent opportunity for a practical study of the problem. The next time some member of your family has a cold in the head, try to prevent its spreading further, and you will be surprised to note in how many ways discharges may be interchanged. If we seriously wish to prevent the further spread of infection from a case of communicable disease, an elaborate series of precautions must be taken. The dishes and spoons and forks used by the patient should be kept separate until they have been boiled. Hand- kerchiefs, towels and bed linen must be treated in the same way. A special wash basin should be set aside for the patient and faucets should be handled by him, not with the hand just to be cleaned, but with the interposition of a bit of paper. The hands of those who touch the patient or touch objects he has recently handled should be at once washed with some simple disinfectant like eighty per cent. alcohol. The mouths of the patient and of those in attendance on him should be kept as free as possible from infection by frequent gargling with a mild anti- septic, such as a mixture of one part of hydrogen peroxide, two of lis- terine and six of water. The recognition that objects which have been in immediate contact with sick persons or carriers are the important, and the only important, sources of danger, has quite revolutionized our older ideas of disinfec- tion. As Dr. Chapin, the pioneer in this field has pointed out, the dis- infection of the general air and the surfaces of a room by formaldehyde is a burning of incense to the false gods of pre-scientific sanitation. He describes the doctor who comes into the sick room, sits chatting on the bed, puts a spoon in the patient’s mouth, then handles it by the infected end, leaves it on the table, deposits some of the material he has smeared on his hand on the door handle and the rest on the faucet as he turns it to wash his hands; and attempts to atone for his sanitary sins by placing a bowl of so-called chlorides (which have about the disinfectant action of tap water) under the bed, and at the end of the attack by performing the sacrificial rite of the formaldehyde candle. As a matter of fact, the prevention of contact infection during the illness with imme- diate disinfection of excreta, soiled linen and the like, is a thousand times more important than any terminal disinfection after death or recovery. At the end of the illness there will be left on woodwork or furniture only an insignificant number of living virulent germs. If any do persist, they may be removed by a cleaning-up with hot water, soap

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20 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY and elbow-grease far more effectively than by formaldehyde or any other disinfectant. The attempt to prevent the discharges of the sick from being spread abroad can, of course, only be partially successful at best. Further- more, besides the frank cases of disease there will always be the unrecog- nized and in some cases unrecognizable, carriers. We must invoke here our second line of defence, the protection of the portal of the mouth against the infective germs, always likely to be present about us. This means the cultivation of an instinct of discrimination which I call the aseptic sense, an instinct which automatically keeps out of the mouth everything not bacteriologically clean. I have a baby of five who a year ago when told to open a door said, “Why mother just touched that handle and her cold germs are on it.” At the kindergarten the children hold each other’s hands, pass objects from one to another, work with common modeling clay, and then eat their lunch.. My little girl is the only one who washes her hands first and I believe nothing could make her omit that ceremony. There is no phobia in this, no dread of “ germs,” merely a habitual instinct, no more irksome than the habit of taking off one’s hat when meeting a lady in the street. Is it worth while to trouble ourselves with these things? Our fathers lived happily enough without bothering their heads about them. True enough, but our fathers’ brothers and sisters died in great num- bers because of their ignorance. To-day there are, each twenty-four hours, 200 death beds in the city of New York. If the death rate of twenty years ago had been maintained, there would be 130 more. A forty per cent. decrease in the death rate has already resulted from the advances of sanitary science. Yet there is still upon us 4 great burden of preventable disease and death. The large, easy things, the purifica- tion of public water supplies, the pasteurization of milk supplies, are being accomplished. The insididous spread of contact infection can only be checked by the conduct of life of the individual citizen, by the diffusion of knowledge in the home and the factory, and by the build- ing upon that knowledge of daily habits of personal cleanliness, which shall banish contact infection, as the insect-borne plagues have been banished by our emergence from the grosser filth conditions of the Middle Ages. These fruits of the sanitary conscience, these applica- tions of the aseptic sense, are little things, and therefore hard things; but they are fraught with the possibility of large results in human health and human happiness.

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FACTS AND FACTORS OF DEVELOPMENT 21 FACTS AND FACTORS OF DEVELOPMENT By Prormssor BDWIN GRANT CONKLIN PRINCETON UNIVERSITY II, DEVELOPMENT OF THE MIND so development of the mind parallels that of the body: whatever the ultimate relations of the mind and body may be, there can be no reasonable doubt that the two develop together from the germ. It is a curious fact that many people who are seriously disturbed by scientific teachings as to the evolution, or gradual development of the human race, accept with equanimity the universal observation as to the development of the human individual,—mind as well as body. The animal ancestry of the race is surely no more disturbing to philosophical and religious beliefs than the germinal origin of the individual, and yet the latter is a fact of universal observation which can not be relegated to the domain of hypothesis or theory, and which can not be successfully denied. If we admit the fact of the development of the entire individ- ual, surely it matters little to our philosophical or religious beliefs to admit the development or evolution of the race. The origin of the mind, or rather of the soul, is a topic upon which there has been much speculation by philosophers and theologians. One of the earliest hypotheses was that which is known as transmigration or metempsychosis. This doctrine probably reached its greatest develop- ment in ancient India, where it formed an important part of Buddhistic belief; it was also a part of the religion of ancient Egypt; it was embodied in the philosophies of Pythagoras and Plato. According to these teachings, the number of souls is a constant one; souls are neither made nor destroyed, but at birth a soul which had once tenanted another body enters into the new body. This doctrine was generally repudiated by the Fathers of the Christian Church. Jerome and others adopted the view that God creates a new soul for each body that is generated, and that every soul is thus a special divine creation. This has become the prevailing view of the Christian Church and is known as creationism, On the other hand Tertullian taught that souls of children are generated from the souls of parents as bodies are from bodies. This doctrine, which is known as traducianism, has been defended by certain modern theologians, but has been formally condemned by the Roman Catholic Church, Traducianism undoubtedly comes nearer the scientific teachings as to the development of the mind than does either of the other doctrines named, but it is based upon the prevalent but erroneous belief that the

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22 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY bodies of the parents generate the body of the child, and that correspond- ingly the souls of the parents generate the soul of the child. Now we know that the child comes from germ cells which are not made by the bodies of the parents, but which have arisen by the division of antecedent germ cells. Every cell comes from a preexisting cell by a process of division, and every germ cell comes from a preexisting germ cell. Con- sequently it is not possible to hold that the body generates germ cells, nor that the soul generates souls. The only possible scientific position is that the mind (or soul) as well as the body develops from the germ. No fact in human experience is more certain than that the mind develops by gradual and natural processes from a simple condition which can scarcely be called mind at all; no fact in human experience is fraught with greater practical and philosophical significance than this; and yet no fact is more generally disregarded. We know that the greatest men of the race were once babies, embryos, germ cells, and that the greatest minds in human history were once the minds of babies, embryos and germ cells, and yet this stupendous fact has had but little influence on our beliefs as to the nature of man and of mind. We rarely think of Plato and Aristotle, of Shakespeare and Newton, of Pasteur and Dar- win, except in their full epiphany, and yet we know that when each of these was a child he “ thought as a child and spake as a child,” and when he was a germ cell he behaved as a germ cell. The development of the mind from the activities of the germ cells is certainly most wonderful and mysterious, but probably no more so than the development of the complicated body of the adult animal from the structures of the germ. Both belong to the same order of phenomena and there is no more reason for supposing that the mind is super- naturally created than that the body is. Indeed, we know that the mind is formed by a process of development, and the stages of this develop- ment are fairly well known. There is nowhere in the entire course of mental development a sudden appearance of psychical process, but rather a gradual development of these from simpler and simpler begin- nings, No detailed study has been made of the reactions of human germ cells and embryos, but there is every reason to believe that these reactions are simpler in the embryo and germ cell than in the infant, and they are generally similar to the reactions of the germ cells and embryos of other animals and to the behavior of many lower organisms, A few years ago such a statement would have been branded as “materialism” and promptly rejected without examination by those who are frightened by names. But the general spread of the scientific spirit is shown not only by the growing regard for evidence, but also by the decreasing power of epithets. “Materialism,” like many another ghost, fades away into thin air or at least loses many of its terrors, when closely scrutinized. But the statement that mind develops from the germ cells is not an affirmation of materialism, for while it identifies the origin of

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FACTS AND FACTORS OF DEVELOPMENT 23 the entire individual, mind and body, with the development of the germ, it does not assert that “matter” is the cause of “mind” either in the germ or in the adult. It must not be forgotten that germ cells are living things and that we go no further in associating the beginnings of mind with the beginnings of body in the germ than we do in associating mind and body in the adult. It is just as materialistic to hold that the mind of the mature man is associated with his body as it is to hold that the beginnings of mind in the germ are associated with the beginnings of the body, and both of these tenets are incontrovertable. _It seems to me that the mind is related to the body as function is to structure; there are those who maintain that structure is the cause of function, that the real problem in evolution or development is the trans- formation of one structure into another, and that the functions which go with certain structures are merely incidental results; on the other hand are those who maintain that function is the cause of structure and that the problem of evolution or development is the change which takes place in functions and habits, these changes causing corresponding transfor- mations of structure. Among adherents of the former view may be classed many morphologists and Neo-Darwinians, among proponents of the latter, many physiologists and Neo-Lamarckians. It seems to me that the defenders of each of these views fail to recognize the essential unity of the entire organism, structure as well as function ; that neither of these is the cause of the other, though each may modify or condition the other, but that they are two aspects of one common thing, viz., organization. In the same way I think that the body or brain is not the cause of mind, nor mind the cause of body or brain, but that both are inherent in one common organization or individuality, In asserting that the mind develops from the germ as the body does, no attempt is made to explain the fundamental properties of body or mind, As the structures of the body may be traced back to certain fundamental structures of the germ cell, so the characteristics of the mind may be traced back to certain fundamental properties and activities of the germ. Many of the psychical processes may be traced back in their development to properties of sensitivity, reflex motions, and persistence of the effects of stimuli. All organisms manifest these properties and for aught we know to the contrary they may be original and necessary characteristics of living things. In the simplest proto- plasm we find organization, that is, structure and function, and in germinal protoplasm we find the elements of the mind as well as of the body, and the problem of the ultimate relation of the two is the same whether we consider the organism in its germinal or in its adult stage. In some way the mind as well as the body develops out of the germ. What are the germinal bases of mind? What are the psychical anlagen in embryos and how do they develop? In this case, even more than in the development of the body, we are compelled to rely upon the compari-

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24 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY son of human development with that of other animals, but the great _ principle of the oneness of life, as respects its fundamental processes, has never yet failed to hold true and will not fail us here. In the study of the psychical processes of organisms other than ourselves we are com- pelled to rely upon a study of their activities, their reactions to stimuli, since we can not approach the subject in any other way. The reactions and behavior of organisms under normal and experimental conditions give the only insight which we can get into their psychical processes— and this applies to men no less than to protozoa. 1. Sensitivity—The most fundamental phenomenon in the behavior of organisms is irritability or sensitivity, which is the capacity of re- ceiving and responding to stimuli: this is one of the fundamental prop- erties of all protoplasm, But living matter is not equally sensitive to all stimuli, nor to all strengths of the same stimulus, Many of the simplest unicellular plants and animals show that they are differentially sensitive; they often move toward weak light and away from strong light, away from extremes of heat and cold, into certain chemical sub- stances and away from others—in short, all organisms, even the simplest, may respond differently to different kinds of stimuli or to different degrees of the same stimulus. This is what is known as differential sen- Fic. 17. DISTRIBUTION OF BACTERIA IN THE SPECTRUM. The largest group is in the ultra-red at the left; the next largest group is in the yellow-orange close to the line D. (From Jennings, after Engelmann.) sitivity (Figs. 17, 18,19.) On the other hand, many organisms respond in the same way to different stimuli and this may be taken to indicate generally that they are not differentially sensitive to such stimuli; it is not to be concluded that because organisms respond differently to certain stimuli they are therefore capable of distinguishing between all kinds of stimuli, for this is certainly not true. Even in adult men the capacity of distinguishing between different kinds of stimuli is far from perfect. Egg cells and spermatozoa show this property of sensitivity. The egg is generally incapable of locomotion, and since the results of stimu- lation must usually be detected by movements it is not easy to determine to what extent the egg is sensitive; but though the egg lacks the power of locomotion, it possesses in a marked degree the power of intra-cellular movement of the cell contents, When a spermatozoon comes into con- tact with the surface of the egg the cortical protoplasm of the egg flows toward that point and may form a cone or protoplasmic prominence into which the sperm is received (Figs. 4,5, # C). It is an interesting fact

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FACTS AND FACTORS OF DEVELOPMENT 25 that the same sort of response follows when a frog’s egg is pricked by a needle, thus showing that in this case the egg does not distinguish be- tween the prick of the needle and that of the spermatozoon. The sper- matozoon is usually a locomotor cell and it responds differently to cer- tain stimuli, just as many bacteria and protozoa do; spermatozoa are strongly stimulated by weak alkalies and alcohol, they gather in certain chemical substances and not in others, they collect in great numbers around fertilizable egg cells, etc. The movements of fertilized egg cells, cleavage cells, and early em- bryonic cells are usually limited to flowing movements within the Cees e® +” Badin . AY ty Fig. 18, a, b, c. REPULSION OF Apirilla BY COMMON SaLr. a, condition immedi- ately after adding crystals; b and c, later stages in the reaction. ®, y, 2, repulsion of Spirilla by distilled water. The upper drop consists of sea- water containing Spirilla, the lower drop of distilled water. At @ these have just been united by a narrow neck; at y and 2, the bacteria have retreated before the distilled water. (From Jennings, after Massart.) individual cells. These movements, which are of a complicated nature, are of the greatest significance in the differentiation of the egg into the embryo ; they are caused chiefly by internal stimuli and by non-localized external ones. Modifications of the external stimuli often lead to modi-

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26 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY fications of these intra-cellular movements and to abnormal types of cleavage and development—in short, these movements show that the fertilized egg is differentially sensitive. In the further course of development particular portions of the embryo become especially sensitive to some kinds of stimuli, while other portions become sensitive to others. In this way the different sense organs, each especially sensitive to one particular kind of stimulus, arise from the generalized sensitivity of the oosperm, and thus general sensi- tivity, which is a property of all protoplasm, becomes differential sen- sitivity and special senses in the process of embryonic differentiation. Such sensitivity is the basis of all psychic processes: sensations are the elements of the mind. 3. Tropisms, Reflexes, Instincts—All the responses of germ cells, and of the simplest organisms, to stimuli are in the nature of tropisms or reflexes, that is, relatively simple, automatic responses, Such tro- pisms or reflexes are seen in the movements of bacteria, protozoa and ca pe sa. OS Se SPE aw Bie Me ; v a e *, & . - BO ~ a 2.™ tPa 0 of «o ® > o R50 0 Nw ad “ a2 ee a Fw gre ay eae es Pts ot ge _¢ ’ ad e - : , @. e e ‘ o ton es or ~~ feet oo aad ne 8, & 4Meo - 92“ 19¢ Be Cc 1o* Fic. 19. REACTIONS oF Paramecium TO HuatT AND CoLp. At a the infusoria are uniformly distributed in a trough, both ends of which have a temperature of 19°; at b the infusoria are shown collected at the cooler end of the trough; at c they have collected at the warmer end of the trough. (From Jennings, after Mendelssohn.) many higher animals and plants as well as in movements of spermatozoa, the movements of the protoplasm in egg cells and embryonic cells, the movements of cells and cell masses in the formation of the gastrula, alimentary canal, nervous system and other organs. Indeed the entire process of development, whether accompanied by visible movements or not, may be regarded as a series of automatic responses to stimuli.

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FACTS AND FACTORS OF DEVELOPMENT 27 When the embryo becomes differentiated to such an extent as to have specialized organs for producing movement its capacity for making re- sponsive movements to stimuli becomes much increased. If the re- sponses of animals and plants to stimuli are of such a sort that the organism turns or moves toward or away from a source of stimulus they are termed tropisms; if the responses are very complicated, one response calling forth another and involving many reflexes, as is frequently the case in animals, they are known as instincts. In the embryo the rhyth- mic contractions of heart, amnion and intestine are early manifestations of reflex motions. These appear chiefly in the involuntary muscles ' before nervous connections are formed, the protoplasm of the muscle cells probably responding directly to the chemical stimulus of certain salts in the body fluids, as Loeb has shown. Reflexes which appear later are the random movements of the voluntary muscles of limbs and body, which are called forth by nerve impulses. Tropisms are manifested only by organisms capable of considerable free movement and hence are absent in the foetus though present in many free living larve. Some instincts are present immediately after birth, such as the instinct of sucking or crying, though these are so simple when compared with some instincts which develop later that they might be classed as reflexes; it is doubtful whether any of the activities before birth could properly be designated as instincts. Reflexes, tropisms and instincts have had a phylogenetic as well as an ontogenetic origin, and consequently we might expect that they would in general make for the preservation of the species, and as a matter of fact we usually find that they are remarkably adapted to this end. For instance the instincts of the human infant to grasp objects, to suck things which it can get into its mouth, to cry when in pain, are complicated reflexes. which have survived in the course of evolution probably because they serve a useful purpose, Very much has been written on the nature and origin of instincts, but the best available evidence strongly favors the view that instincts are complex reflexes, which, like the structures of an organism, have been built up, both ontogenetically and phylogenetically, under the stress of the elimination of the unfit, so that they are usually adaptive. 3. Memory.—Another general characteristic of protoplasm is the capacity of storing up or registering the effects of previous stimuli. A single stimulus may produce changes in an organism which persist for a longer or shorter time, and if a second stimulus occurs while the effect of a previous one still persists, the response to the second stimulus may be very different from that to the first. Macfarlane found that if the sensitive hairs on the leaf of Dionea, the Venus fly-trap (Fig. 20, SH), be stroked once, no visible response is called forth, but if they be stroked a second time within three minutes the leaf instantly closes. If a longer period than three minutes elapses after the first stimulus and before the second no visible response follows, 1. ¢., two successive stimuli are neces-

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28 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY sary to cause the leaves to close, and the two must not be more than three minutes apart ; the effects of the first stimulus are in some way stored or registered in the leaf for this brief time. This kind of phenomenon is widespread among living things and is known as “summation of stim- uli.” In all such cases the effects of a former stimulus are in some way stored up for a longer or shorter time in the protoplasm. It is possible that this is the result of the formation of some chemical substance which remains in the protoplasm for a certain time, during which time the ef- Fic. 20. Dionco muscipula (VENUS’ FiyTRaP). Three leaves showing marginal teeth and sensitive hairs (SH). The leaf at the left is fully expanded, the one at the right is closed. fects of the stimulus are said to persist, or it may be due to some physical change in the protoplasm analogous to the “set” in metals which have been subjected to mechanical strain. Probably of a similar character is the persistence of the effects of repeated stimuli and responses on any organ of a higher animal. A muscle which has contracted many times in a definite way ultimately becomes “ trained” so that it responds more rapidly and more accurately than an untrained muscle; and the nervous mechanism through which the stimulus is transmitted also becomes trained in the same way. In- deed such training is probably chiefly a training of the nervous mechan- ism. The skill of the pianist, of the tennis player, of the person who has learned the difficult art of standing or walking, or the still more diffi- cult art of talking, is probably due to the persistence in muscles and nerves of the effects of many previous activities. All such phenomena were called by Hering, “organic memory,” to indicate that this persist- ence of the effects of previous activities in muscles and other organs is

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FACTS AND FACTORS OF DEVELOPMENT 29 akin to that persistence of the effects of previous experiences in the nervous mechanism which we commonly call memory. It seems probable that this ability of protoplasm in general to preserve for a time the effects of former stimuli is fundamentally of the same nature as the much greater power of nerve cells to preserve such effects for much longer periods and in complex associations, a faculty which is known as associative memory. The embryos, and indeed even the germ cells of higher animals, may safely be assumed to be endowed with protoplasmic and organic memory, out of which, in all probability, develop associative and conscious memory in the mature organism. 4. Intellect, Reason—Even the intellect and reason which s0 strongly characterize man have had a development from relatively simple beginnings. All children come gradually to an age of intelligence and reason, In its simpler forms at least reason may be defined as the power of predicting future events and of reaching conclusions regarding un- experienced phenomena under the influence of past experience, In the absence of individual experience young children have none of this power, but it comes gradually as a result of remembering past experiences and of fitting such experiences into new conditions. Young infants and many lower animals lack the power of reason, though their behavior is frequently of such a sort as to suggest that they are reasoning. Even the lowest animals avoid injurious substances and conditions and find beneficial ones; more complex animals learn to move objects, solve prob- lems, and find their way through labyrinths in the shortest and most economical way; but this apparently intelligent and purposive behavior has been shown to be due to the general elimination of all sorts of use- less activities, and to the persistence of the useful ones. The ciliated infusorian, Paramecium, moves by the beating of cilia which are arranged in such a way that they drive the animal forward in a spiral course. However, when it is strongly irritated, the nor- mal forward movement is reversed; the cilia beat forward instead of backward and the animal is driven backward for some distance (Figs. 21, 1, 2, 3) ; it then stands nearly still merely rolling over and swerving toward the aboral side and finally it goes ahead again, usually on a new course (Fig. 21, 3, 4, 5, 6). These movements seem to be conditioned rather rigidly by the organization of the animal: they are more or less fixed and mechanical in character though to a certain extent they may be modified by experience or physiological states. Paramecium behaves as it does in virtue of its constitution, just as an egg develops in a particu- lar way because of its particular organization. But although limited in its behavior to these relatively simple motor reactions, Paramecium does many things which seem to show intelligence and purpose. It avoids many injurious substances, such as strong salts or acids and it collects in non-injurious or beneficial substances, such as weak acids, masses of bacteria upon which it feeds, etc. It avoids ex-

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3° THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY tremes of heat and cold and if one end of a dish containing paramecia is heated and the other end is cooled by ice, the paramecia collect in the region somewhere between these two extremes (Fig. 19). Jennings, by studying carefully the behavior of single individuals, established the fact that this apparently intelligent action is due to differential sensitivity and to the single motor reaction of the animal. If in the course of its swimming a Paramecium comes into contact with an irritating substance or condition, it backs a short distance, swerves toward its aboral side, and goes ahead in a new path; if it again comes in contact with the irri- Fie, 21. DIAGRAM OF THB AVOIDING REACTION OF Paramecium. A is a solid ob- ject or other source of stimulation. 1-6, successive positions occupied by the animal. The rotation on the long axis is not shown. (After Jennings.) tating conditions this reaction is repeated, and so on indefinitely until finally a path is found in which the source of irritation is avoided alto- gether. In short, Paramecium continually tries its environment, and backs away from irritating substances or conditions. Its apparently intelligent reactions are thus explained as due to a process of “ trial and error.” ? The behavior of worms, star-fishes, crustaceans, mollusks, as well as of fishes, frogs, reptiles, birds and mammals, have been studied and in all cases it is found that their method of responding to stimuli is not at first really purposive and intelligent but by the gradual elimination of useless responses and the preservation (or remembering) of useful ones the behavior may come to be purposive and intelligent. Thorndike found that when dogs, cats and monkeys were confined 8In Paramecium, there is certainly no consciousness of trial and error, and probably no unconscious attempt on the part of the animal to attain certain ends. Its responses are reflexes or tropisms, which are determined by the nature of the animal, and the character of the stimulus. The fact that these responses are in the main self-preservative is due to the teleological organization of Para- mecium which has been evolved, according to current opinion, as the result of long ages of the elimination of the unfit. If, in the opinion of any one, the ex- pression ‘‘ trial and error’’ necessarily involves a striving after ends, it would be advisable to replace it in this case by some such term as ‘‘ useful or adaptive reactions. ’’

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FACTS AND FACTORS OF DEVELOPMENT 31 in cages which could be opened from the inside by turning a button, or pressing upon a lever, or pulling a cord, they at first clawed around all sides of the cage until by chance they happened to operate the mechan- ism which opened the door. Thereafter they gradually learned by experience, that is, by trial and error, and finally by trial and success, just where and how to claw in order to get out at once. When a dog has learned to turn a button at once and open a door we say he is in- telligent, and if he can learn to apply his knowledge of any particular cage to other and different cages, a thing which Thorndike denies, we should be justified in saying that he reasons, though in this case intelli- gence and reason are founded upon memory of many past experiences, of many trials and errors and of a few trials and successes, There is every evidence that human beings arrive at intelligence and reason by the same process, a process of many trials and errors and a few trials and successes, a remembering of these past experiences and an application of them to new conditions, A baby grasps for things which are out of its reach, until it has learned by experience to appre- ciate distances ; it tests all sorts of pleasant and unpleasant things until it has learned to avoid the latter and seek the former; it experiments with its own body until it has learned what it can do and what it can not do. Is not this learning by experience akin to the same process in the dog and more remotely to the trial and error of the earthworm or the adaptive reflexes of Paramecium? Is not intelligence and reason in all of us, and upon all subjects, based upon the same processes of trial and error, memory of past experiences and application of this to new con- ditions? Surely this is true in all experimental and scientific work. Indeed the scientific method is the method of trial and error, and finally trial and success—the method recommended by St. Paul to “try all things and hold fast that which is good.” In Paramecium the reflex type of behavior is relatively complete; there is no associative memory and no ability to learn by experience. In the earthworm associative memory is but slightly developed and the ani- mal learns but little by experience and can make no application of past experiences to new conditions. In the dog associative memory is well de- veloped; the animal learns by experience and can, to a limited extent, apply such memory of past experiences to new conditions. In adult man all of these processes are fully developed and particularly the last, viz., the ability to reason. But in his development the human individual passes through the more primitive stages of intelligence, represented by the lower animals named ; the germ cells and embryo represent only the stages of reflex behavior, to these trial and error and associative memory are added in the infant and young child, and to these the application of past experience to new conditions, or reason, is added in later years. 5. Will.—Another characteristic, which many persons regard as the supreme psychical faculty, is the will. This faculty also undergoes de-,

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32 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY velopment and from relatively simple beginnings. The will of the child has developed out of something which is far less perfect in the infant and embryo than in the child. Observations and experiments on lower animals and on human beings, as well as introspective study of our own activities, appear to justify the following conclusions: (1.) Every activity of an organism is a response to one or more stim- uli, external or internal in origin. These stimuli are in the main, if not entirely, energy changes outside or inside the organism. In lower organ- isms as well as in the germ cells and embryos of higher animals the pos- sible number of responses are few and prescribed owing to their relative simplicity, and the response follows the stimulus directly. In more com- plex organisms the number of possible responses to a stimulus is greatly increased, and the visible response may be the end of a long series of in- ternal changes which are started by the original stimulus. (2.) The response to a stimulus may be modified or inhibited in the following ways: (a) Through conflicting stimuli and changed physiological states (due to fatigue, hunger, etc.). Many stimuli may reach the organism at the same time and if they conflict they may nullify one another or the organism may respond to the strongest stimulus and disregard the weaker ones. When an organism has begun to respond to one stimulus it is not easily diverted to another. Jennings found that the attached infusorian, Stentor, which usually responds to strong stimuli by closing up, may, when repeatedly stimulated, loosen its attachment and swim away, thus responding in a wholly new manner when its physiological state has been changed by repeated stimuli and responses. Whitman found that leeches of the genus Clepsine prefer shade to bright light, and other things being equal they always seek the under sides of stones and shaded places; but if a turtle from which they normally suck blood is put into an aquarium with the leeches, they at once leave the shade and attach themselves to the turtle. They prefer shade to bright light but they prefer their food to the shade. The tendency to remain con- cealed is inhibited by the stronger stimulus of hunger. On the other hand he found that the salamander, Necturus, is so timid that it will not take food, even though starving, until by gradual stages and gentle treat- ment its timidity can be overcome to a certain extent. Here fear is at first a stronger stimulus than hunger and unless the stimulus of fear can be reduced the animal will starve to death in the presence of the most tempting food. (b) Responses may also be modified through compulsory limitation of many possible responses to a particular one, and the consequent forma- tion of a habit, This is the method of education employed in training all sorts of animals. Thus Jennings found that a starfish could be trained to turn itself over, when placed on its back, by means of one particular arm simply by persistently preventing the use of the other

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FACTS AND FACTORS OF DEVELOPMENT 33 arms. Many responses of organisms are modified in a similar way, not only by artificial limitations, but also by natural ones. (c) Responses which have become fixed and constant through natural selection or other means of limitation may become more varied and general when the compulsory limitation is relaxed. Behavior in the former case is fixed and instinctive, in the latter more varied and plastic. Thus Whitman found that the behavior of domesticated pigeons is more variable and their instincts less rigidly fixed than in wild species. If the eggs are removed to a little distance from the nest the wild passenger pigeon returns to the nest and sits down as if nothing had happened. She soon finds out, not by sight but by feeling, that something is miss- ing, and she leaves the nest after a few minutes without heeding the eggs. The ring-neck pigeon also misses the eggs and sometimes rolls one of them back into the nest, but never attempts to recover more than one. The dove-cote pigeon generally tries to recover both eggs. In these three grades the advance is from extreme blind uniformity of ac- tion, with little or no choice, to a stage of less rigid uniformity. .. . Under conditions of domestication the action of natural selection has been relaxed, with the result that the rigor of instinctive coordination, which bars alternative action, is more or less reduced. Not only is the door to choice thus unlocked, but more varied opportunities and provocations arise, and thus the internal mechan- ism and the external conditions and stimuli work both in the same direction to favor greater freedom of action. When choice thus enters no new factor is in- troduced. There is greater plasticity within and more provocation without, and hence the same bird, without the addition or loss of a single nerve cell, becomes capable of higher action and is encouraged and even constrained by circum- stances to learn to use its privileges of choice. Choice, as I conceive it, is not introduced as a little deity encapsuled in the brain. . . . But increased plas- ticity invites greater interaction of stimuli and gives more even chances for conflicting impulses. (d) Finally in all animals behavior is modified though previous ex- perience, just as structure is also, Where several responses to a stimulus are possible and where experience has taught that one response is more satisfactory than another, action may be limited to this particular re- sponse, not by external compulsion, but by the internal impulse of experi- ence and intelligence, This is what we know as conscious choice or will. Whitman says: Choice runs on blindly at first and ceases to be blind only in proportion as the animal learns through nature’s system of compulsory education. The teleo- logical alterations are organically provided; one is taken and fails to give satis- faction; another is tried and gives contentment. This little freedom is the dawning grace of a new dispensation, in which education by experience comes in as an amelioration of the law of elimination. . . . Intelligence implies varying degrees of freedom of choice, but never complete emancipation from automatism. Freedom of action does not mean action without stimuli, but rather the introduction of the results of experience and intelligence as addi- VOL, LXXxv.—3.

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34 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY tional stimuli. The activities, which in lower animals are “ cabined, cribbed, confined,” reach in man their fullest and freest expression ; but the enormous difference between the relatively fixed behavior of a proto- zoan or a germ cell and the relatively free activities of a mature man is bridged not only in the process of evolution, but also in the course of individual development. 6. Consciousness.—The most complex of all psychic phenomena, in- deed the one which includes many if not all of the others, is conscious- ness. Like every other psychic process this has undergone development in each of us; we not only came out of a state of unconsciousness, but through several years we were gradually acquiring consciousness by a process of development. Whether consciousness is the sum of all the psychic faculties, or is a new product dependent upon the interaction of the other faculties, it must pass through many stages in the course of its development, stages which would commonly be counted as unconscious or subconscious states, and complete consciousness must depend upon the complete development and activity of the other faculties, particularly associative memory and intelligence. The question is sometimes asked whether germ cells, and indeed all living things, may not be conscious in some vague manner. One might as well ask whether water is present in hydrogen and oxygen. Doubtless the elements out of which conscious- ness develops are present in the germ cells, in the same sense that the elements of the other psychic processes or of the organs of the body are there present—not as a miniature of the adult condition, but rather in the form of elements or factors, which by a long series of combinations and transformations, due to interactions with one another and with the environment, give rise to the fully developed condition, ‘Finally there seems good reason for believing that the continuity of consciousness, the continuing sense of identity, is associated with the continuity of material substance, for in spite of frequent changes of the materials of which we are composed our sense of identity remains undis- turbed. However, the continuity of protoplasmic and cellular organiza- tion generally remains undisturbed throughout life, and the continuity of consciousness is associated with this continuity of organization, espe- cially in certain parts of the brain. It is an interesting fact that in man and in several other animals which may be assumed to have a sense of identity, the nerve cells, especially those of the brain, cease dividing at an early age, and these identical cells persist throughout the remainder of life. If nerve cells continued to divide throughout life, as epithelial cells do, there would be no such persistence of identical cells, and one is free to speculate that in such cases there would be no persistence of the sense of identity. Organization includes both structure and function, and continuity of organization implies not only persistence of protoplasmic and cellular structures, but also persistence of functions, of sensitivity, reflexes,

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FACTS AND FACTORS OF DEVELOPMENT 35° memory, instincts, intelligence and will; the continuity of consciousness is associated with the continuity of these activities, as well as with the structures of the body in general and of the brain in particular. It is well known that things which interrupt or destroy these functions or structures interrupt or destroy consciousness. Lack of oxygen, anes- thetics, normal sleep cause in some way a temporary interruption of these functions and consequently temporary loss of consciousness ; while certain injuries or diseases of the brain which bring about the destruc- tion of certain centers or association tracts may cause permanent loss of consciousness. The development of all of these psychical faculties runs parallel with the development of bodily structures and apparently the method of development in the two cases is similar, viz., progressive differentiation of complex and specialized structures and functions from relatively simple and generalized beginnings. Indeed the entire organism—struc- ture and function body and mind—is a unity, and the only justification for dealing with these constituents of the organism as if they were sepa- rate entities, whether they be regarded in their adult condition or in the course of their development, is to be found in the increased convenience and effectiveness of such separate treatment. Development, like many other vital phenomena, may be considered. from several different points of view, such as (1) physico-chemical events involved, (2) physiological processes, (3) morphological charac- ters, (4) ecological correlations and adaptations, (5) psychological phenomena, (6) social and moral developments. All of these phases of development are correlated, indeed they are parts of one general process, and a complete account of this process must include them all, General considerations may lead us to the belief that each of the succeeding ‘ aspects of development named above may be causally explained in terms of the preceding ones, and hence all be reducible to physics and chem- istry. But this is not now demonstrable and may not be true, Function and structure may be related causally, or they may be two aspects of one substance. The same is true of body and mind or of matter and energy. But even if each of these different phases in the development of person- ality may not be causally explained by the preceding ones, at least the principle of explanation employed for any aspect of development ought to be consistent and harmonious with that employed for any other aspect. The phenomena of mental development in man and other animals may be summarized in the following table: DEVELOPMENT OF PSYCHICAL PROCESSES IN ONTOGENY AND PHYLOGENY All Living Things, including Germ Mature Forms of Higher Animals Cells and Embryos, show: show: 1. Differential Sensitivity = 1. Special Senses and Sensations = Different Responses to Stimuli Sensations are the Elements of differing in Kind or Quantity. Mind.

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36 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 2. Reflex Motions = 2. Instincts (Inherited), Habits (Ao- Relatively Simple, Automatic Re- quired) = sponses. Complex Reflexes, involving Nerve 3. Organic Memory = Centers. Results of Previous Experience 3. Associative Memory = registered in General Proto- Results of Experience registered in plasm. Nerve Centers and Association 4. Adaptwe Responses = Tracts. Results of Elimination of Useless 4. Intelligence, Reason = Responses through Trial and Results of Trial and Error plus Error. Associative Memory, 4 e. Ex- 5. Varied Responses perience. Dependent upon Conflicting Stim- 5. Inhibition, Choice, Will uli and Physiological States. Dependent upon Associative Mem- 6. Identity = ory, Intelligence, Reason. Continuity of Individual Organi- 6. Consciousness = zation. Continuity of Memory, Intelligence, Reason, Will. Factors oF DEVELOPMENT These are some of the facts of development—a very incomplete ré- sumé of some of the stages through which a human being passes in the course of his development from the germ. What are the factors of de- velopment? By what processes is it possible to derive from a relatively simple germ cell the complexities of an adult animal? How can mind and consciousness develop out of the relatively simple psychical elements of the germ? These are some of the great problems of development— the greatest and most far-reaching theme which has ever occupied the minds of men. Preformation.—When the mind is once lost in the mystery of this ever recurring miracle it is not surprising to find that there have been those who have refused to believe it possible and who have practically denied development altogether. The old doctrine of “evolution” as it was called by the scientists of the eighteenth century, or of preformation as we know it to-day held that all the organs or parts of the adult were present in the germ in a minute and transparent condition as the leaves and stem are present in a bud, or as the shoot and root of the little plant are present in the seed.* In the case of animals it was generally impos- sible to see the parts of the future animal in the germ, but this was sup- posed to be due to the smaller size of the parts and to their greater trans- parency, and with poor microscopes and good imagination some observ- ers thought they could see the little animals in the egg or sperm, and even the little man, or “homunculus,” was described and figured as folded up in one or the other of the sex cells. 4 The little plant in the seed is itself the product of the development of a single cell, the ovule, in which no trace of a plant is present, but of course this fact was not known until after careful microscopical studies had been made of the earliest stages of development.

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FACTS AND FACTORS OF DEVELOPMENT 37 This doctrine of preformation was not only an attempt to solve the mystery of development, but it was also an attempt to avoid the theolog- ical difficulties supposed to be involved in the view that individuals are produced by a process of gradual development rather than by super- natural creation, If every individual of the race existed within the germ cells of the first parents, then in the creation of the first parents the entire race with its millions of individuals was created at once. Thus arose the theory of “ emboitement,” or “box in box,” the absurdi- ties of which contributed to the downfall of the entire doctrine of pre- formation, which, in the form in which it was held by many naturalists of the eighteenth century, is now only a curiosity of biological literature. Epigenesis.—As opposed to this doctrine of preformation, which was founded largely on speculation, arose the theory of epigenesis, which was in its main features founded upon the direct observation of development, and which maintained that the germ contains none of the adult parts, but that it is absolutely simple and undifferentiated, and that from these simple beginnings the individual gradually becomes complex by a process of differentiation. We owe the theory of epigenesis, at least so far as its main features are concerned, to William Harvey, the discoverer of the circulation of the blood, and to Caspar Friederich Wolff, whose doctor’s thesis published in 1759, and entitled “Theoria Generationis,” marked the beginning of a great epoch in the study of development. Wolff demonstrated that adult parts are not present in the germ, either in ani- mals or in plants, but that these parts gradually appear in the process of development. He held, erroneously, that the germ is absolutely simple, homogeneous and undifferentiated, and that differentiation and organi- zation gradually appear in this undifferentiated substance. How to get differentiations out of non-differentiated material, heterogeneity out of homogeneity, was the great problem which confronted Wolff and his fol- lowers, and they were compelled to assume some extrinsic or environ- mental force, some vis formativia or spiritus rector, which could set in motion and direct the process of development. The doctrine of preformation, by locating in the germ all the parts which would ever arise from it, practically denied development alto- gether ; epigenesis recognized the fact of development, but attributed it to mysterious and purely hypothetical external forces ; the one placed all emphasis upon the germ and its structures, the other upon outside forces and conditions. Preformation and Epigenesis.—Modern students of development rec- ognize that neither of these extreme views are true—adult parts are not present in the germ, nor is the latter homogeneous—but there are in germ cells many different structures and functions which are, however, very unlike those of the adult, and by the transformation and differ- entiation of this germinal organization the complicated organization of the adult arises. Development is not the unfolding of an infolded organ-

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38 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY ism, nor the mere sorting of materials already present in the germ cells, though this does take place, but rather it consists in the formation of new materials and qualities—of new structures and functions—by the combination and interaction of the germinal elements present in the oosperm, In similar manner the combination and interaction of chemi- cal elements yield new substances and qualities which are not to be observed in the elements themselves. Such new substances and qualities, whether in the organic or in the inorganic world, do not arise by the gradual unfolding of what was present from the beginning, but they are produced by a process of “ creative synthesis.” Modern studies of germ cells have shown that they are much more complex than was formerly believed to be the case; they may even con- tain different “organ-forming substances” which in the course of de- velopment give rise to particular organs; these substances may be so placed in the egg as to foreshadow the polarity, symmetry and pattern of the embryo, but even the most highly organized egg is relatively simple as compared with the animal into which it ultimately develops. Increas- ing complexity, which is the essence of development, is caused by the combination and interaction of germinal substances under the influence of the environment. The organization of the oosperm may be com- pared to the arrangement of tubes and flasks in a complicated chemical operation ; they stand in a definite relation to one another and each con- tains specific substances. The final result of the operation depends not merely upon the substances used, nor merely upon the way in which the apparatus is set up, but upon both of these things, as well as upon the environmental conditions represented by temperature, pressure, moisture or other extrinsic factors. Heredity and Environment.—Unquestionably the factors, or causes, of development are to be found not merely in the germ but, also in the environment, not only in intrinsic but also in extrinsic forces; but it is equally certain that the directing and guiding factors of development are in the main intrinsic, and are present in the organization of the germ cells, while the environmental factors exercise chiefly a stimulating, inhibiting or modifying influence on development. In the same dish and under similar environmental conditions, one egg will develop into a worm, another into a sea urchin, another into a fish, and it is certain that the different fate of each egg is determined by conditions intrinsic in the egg itself, rather than by environmental conditions. We should look upon the germ as a living thing, and upon development as one of its functions. Just as the character of any function is determined by the organism, though it may be modified by environment, so the charac- ter of development is determined by heredity, ¢. e., by the organization of the germ cells, though the course and results of development may be modified by environmental conditions,

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FACTS AND FACTORS OF DEVELOPMENT SUMMARY In conclusion, we have briefly reviewed in this lecture the well known fact that every living thing in the world has come into existence by a process of development; that the entire human personality, mind as well as body, has thus arisen; and that the factors of development may be classified as intrinsic in the organization of the germ cell, and extrinsic as represented in environmental forces and conditions. The intrinsic factors are those which are commonly called heredity, and they direct and guide development in the main; fhe extrinsic or environmental factors furnish the conditions in which development takes place and modify, more or less, its course.

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY WASTE IN ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION By PrincrpaL FRANKLIN W. JOHNSON UNIVERSITY HIGH SCHOOL, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO HE test of efficiency is being applied to every form of organized activity. Methods of procedure in commerce, manufacture and government are being studied to discover the causes of waste and on the basis of these studies new methods are being devised to eliminate waste in time and effort. The same tests are being applied to our religious, philanthropic and educational organizations. A typical illustration is seen in the investigation made by the Bureau of Municipal Expenditures for the public schools of the city of New York. Another illustration in the field of higher education is afforded by the state of Kansas in which a commission has recently been appointed to study the efficiency of the various institutions of the state with a view to such a reorganization as will avoid the waste involved in the present duplication of equipment and instruction. Similar tests are being made in other school systems and in single institutions. But all of these, though most significant, represent somewhat isolated and local conditions. At the same time, however, the efficiency of our entire system of elementary and secondary schools is being called in question. A com- mittee of the department of superintendents of the National Education Association on Economy of Time in Elementary and Secondary Educa- tion appointed in 1911 is investigating the problem. Their preliminary reports indicate that a thorough study of the situation is being made which may be expected to form the basis for important changes. The history of education in this country shows that our system of organization, assigning eight years to elementary, four years to second- ary, and four years to collegiate education, was not based on any rational theory, but was rather the result of accident. Each type sprang up in a large measure independently of the others, in response to distinct social demands, and a satisfactory adjustment of these independent parts to the needs of a coherent and efficient system of education has not yet been made. In no other country is a similar organization found. Germany may be cited as typical with three years devoted to elementary, nine years to secondary, and four years to university education. The American col- lege with two years of secondary work and two years of university work is unique. It is a significant fact that the Japanese, who have shown wonderful skill in selecting and adapting to their needs the best in western civilization, have modeled their new school system, not upon

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WASTE IN EDUCATION 41 ours, but upon that of European countries. While there is a presump- tion in favor of the majority, the ultimate test to be applied to these differing types of organization is that of efficiency. It is difficult to apply exact scientific comparisons to educational systems in countries with different social conditions. The age test is the most obvious to be applied. In a bulletin of the U. S. Bureau of Education on the “Age and Grade Census of Schools and Colleges,” Strayer has shown that in ninety-three colleges having more than one hundred students each, the average age of graduation is about twenty-three years. Statistics of ages of graduation from medical schools confirms this figure. The average age’ of medical candidates in 1912 at the following institutions was: Western Reserve, 27.9; Har- vard, 27.2; Rush, 2%; California, 27; Johns Hopkins, 26.4; Cornell, 26.4. The average age of students graduating in medicine at these institutions in 1912 was thus about 27 years. As a collegiate degree is required for admission to the medical schools at Western Reserve, Har- vard and Johns Hopkins, it appears that medical students in these institutions completed their college courses at about the age of twenty- three. In a recent bulletin of the Bureau of Education, the age at which students complete the course in medicine is given as follows: France, 23; Germany, 23; Great Britain, 23; Netherlands, 24; Switzer- land, 23; United States, 26. There is then a difference of at least two years in the ages at which physicians are ready to enter upon active practise in this and European countries. Counting twenty-three years as the average age for completing the college course, the average age of students entering college in this country is seen to be about nineteen years, which, in the absence of more exact knowledge, may be assumed as about the average of graduation from high school. The average age of graduation from the German gymnasium is about nineteen. The gymnasium course is generally regarded as equal in content to our high- school course plus two years of our college course. With this assump- tion, it will be seen that at the close of the period of secondary education our youth are about two years behind those of Germany. While it is not possible to test for purposes of exact comparison the training received by the graduates of our high schools with that of the German student with two years of his gymnasium course still before him, it is probably not far from the truth to say that not merely in relative time, but also in actual intellectual training, our high school graduates are two years behind those at the corresponding period in the German schools. Now from the point of view of efficiency this apparent waste of two years is a matter of prime importance. What are the causes of waste? Where does it occur? How may it be checked? These are questions of great educational significance. 1 Harry Pratt Judson, ‘‘ Waste in Education Curricula,’’ School Review, Vol. 20, page 435.

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42 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY Of first importance among the causes of waste is the lack of coordi- nation between the separate parts of our organization. Until recently the requirements which the college has made upon the high school have not been based upon any comprehensive view of the increasing scope and of the methods of secondary education. College courses have not been built upon the work of the high school. College instructors have failed to utilize some of the training which the student has received, and have complained loudly over the lack of what they have assumed a high school ought to give. An attitude of superior wisdom has furnished a cloak by which college instructors have concealed their ignorance of edu- cational theory and practise. But with the changed attitude on the part of the high-school teachers from that of complaisant acquiescence to col- lege domination to one of bumptious officiousness, we have suddenly come upon a situation that is full of promise for increased efficiency through better understanding. A new and strange spectacle in educa- tional history was presented last year when the University of Chicago invited secondary-school teachers to visit its class-rooms for a period of several weeks, and based a two days’ series of departmental and general conferences upon a critical discussion by these teachers of the methods of the university class-rooms. Another important step is being taken this year in the visitation by junior college instructors of high-school classes in Chicago and near-by towns, not in a perfunctory manner for an hour or two, but for successive days. It is safe to say that we shall soon be able to avoid no small waste at this point, due to a lack of knowledge and appreciation on the part of both school and college in- structors of the work done on the opposite sides of the arbitrary line which has separated them. But lack of coordination and the waste incident thereto is not found alone at the point of transition from high school to college; it is equally marked between the elementary school and the high school. The ignorance of the methods and content of high-school courses displayed by college instructors is, if possible, exceeded by the lack of definite knowledge displayed by high-school instructors of what goes on in the grades below. The abrupt change from the class-room organization of the elementary school with the careful supervision of the pupil’s study to the departmental organization of the high school where so much emphasis has been placed upon home study and so little attention has been given to the method of the pupil’s study, together with the sudden introduction of the pupil to so many new subjects, has been responsible in no small degree for the enormous percentage of failure and elimina- tion in the early part of the high-school course. Again a prolific source of waste is found in the lack of correlation between different depart- ments, particularly in the high school, of which a more detailed discus- sion will be given later. Another source of waste is found in the character and training of

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WASTE IN EDUCATION 43 our teachers. This will be seen most clearly by a comparison with the situation in the German schools. Candidates for positions in German secondary schools must hold certificates for a full course in one of the secondary schools and must have done three years’ work in a German university. The doctor’s degree is not required, but is held by a large number. Searching examinations are required of all to determine both the preparation for teaching special subjects and also the professional fitness of the candidates. The latter examination includes psychology, philosophy, the history of education and the principles of pedagogy. Three grades of positions are recognized, each with its corresponding examination. These examinations presuppose a more extensive training in the specific subjects than is required of teachers in our high schools. It is obvious that only those with professional as well as specialized training may find a place among the teachers of the German secondary school. But the passing of the examination is not all that is required of a candidate for a gymnasial position. In most parts of Germany he is required to spend two years in further preparation, the seminary year (seminar Jahr), usually in connection with some gymnasium or uni- . versity, and a trial year (probe Jahr), during which he gives from eight to ten hours of instruction weekly without pay, under the guidance of the director and the department teacher. If he has met the exacting standard required during these two preliminary years of special pro- fessional training and experience, and has finally presented a satisfactory thesis of a professional character, he is given a certificate authorizing his appointment to teach in a secondary school. I have presented these detailed facts regarding the requirements for teaching in the German secondary schools in order to indicate clearly one cause of waste in our own school system. Some cities require of candi- dates for high-school positions graduation from college and some pro- fessional training; the state of California requires for a high-school certificate a college training and one year of professional training. But even the highest requirements do not equal those which are practically universal in Germany, and in most parts of our country the scholastic requirements are low and there is no professional requirement whatever. A large number of our high-school teachers of both sexes enter upon teaching not with the expectation of making it a life work, but because it offers the most convenient means of earning a living until some more attractive opening is offered into the fields of matrimony or business. So long as the requirements for high-school positions are so low we must expect our ranks to be filled by teachers of meager training, and often without serious purpose. While there are a large number of teachers in our schools well trained and professionally expert, it is apparent that the results secured must be far short of what might be expected if our schools were taught by uniformly well trained teachers. A third source of waste is found inthe short tenure of position prev-

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44 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY alent among the teachers in our schools. This again may be seen most clearly by contrasting the situation in Germany. Once appointed to a position in Germany, with few exceptions, the teacher remains in the same school until he dies or is retired on pension. The following sta- tistics of the Prussian secondary schools for 1894 are cited by Bolton (“The Secondary School System of Germany,” p. 119) : ED hn oc chcsinnewseccnsewnnesossosves 7.302 ED oi sn csc bwncdeee conv ecdeccsscoenes 233 New teachers first position held ............cccceeececeees 225 New teachers from other positions ..............eeeeeeeeeee 8 I I vncccavccacassnesececcvescocnceseece 209 it nake chi ee beet es es aeee’s eens 2 ID sos on wikis news sence vesccnec vce 42 UN kai ee eA ered beees enseeens soeee 8 i either hee sisheeeearehereeenceesees 98 acon cwieeendeneeeusondseecnnseseecn cee 59 This remarkable permanency of tenure is made possible by the exact- ing methods of testing candidates which prevents the unfit from secur- ing positions in the schools. Conditions in our schools are in marked contrast. Dr. Jessup in a paper recently read at the secondary-school conference of the University of Chicago reported recent investigations bearing on this point. In Indiana for 1912 the median tenure of 186 superintendents was 2.16 years, and for the past fifty years in that state about half the positions were open every other year. In Iowa for 1912 the superintendents of 250 accredited schools had a median tenure of two years, and 40 per cent. were new to their position that year. Includ- ing schools not on the accredited list, the condition was still more stri- king, showing that of 768 schools considered, 46 per cent. of the posi- tions were open last year, and 70 per cent. of the superintendents of these schools had been in their positions two years or less. High-school princi- pals show the same tendency to short tenure. Bolton declares that in Wisconsin about one third of the high-school principals change position every year. Jessup states that of 183 principals in Indiana high schools in 1912, 45 per cent. were new to their positions. In towns of 25,000 population or over, one third of the principals were new to their posi- tions. The same condition holds among high-school teachers. That it is not confined to small schools or particular states is seen from the fol- lowing statistics of schools on the list of the North Central Association for 1912: In Wisconsin 46 per cent. were new to their positions ; in Colo- rado, 44 per cent.; in Missouri, 3% per cent.; in Iowa, 37 per cent.; in Indiana, 40 per cent. In a recent study of “The Social Composition of the Teaching Population ” (Teachers College Contributions to Education, No. 41) based upon reports of 5,215 teachers from twenty-two states, including rural, town and city schools, Dr. Coffman finds the median number of years men teachers have taught, irrespective of location and of position,

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WASTE IN EDUCATION 45 is seven ; for women, it is four. These figures represent the total years of teaching and take no account of the number of positions occupied by each teacher. Tenure of position in city schools is much longer than in the country. Of 1,248 teachers in city schools, Dr. Coffman finds that the median city school man has taught twelve years in the city; the median city school woman has taught seven years in the city. Commis- sioner Harris in his report for 1904 published the results of reports from a much larger number of teachers from 398 cities of 8,000 inhabitants and over, including twenty-nine cities of over 100,000 inhabitants. He found that, in cities of 8,000 inhabitants and over, the median man had taught eleven years and the median woman nine years, and that both the median man and the median woman had taught seven years in their present positions. In cities of 100,000 inhabitants and over, the median teacher had taught ten years and had occupied the same positions eight years. It is obvious that even under the most favorable conditions the average tenure of position is short. Dr. Coffman also has statistics bear- ing on the youthfulness of teachers, showing that 52.9 per cent. of men teachers and 73.8 per cent. of women teachers are under thirty years of age. Sex has a potent bearing upon the question of tenure in position. German secondary teachers are all men, while in this country a very large majority are women. No exact material is available to show the effect of this constant changing of teachers. It is apparent that it greatly lowers the efficiency of our schools. The short tenure of superin- tendents and high-school principals hardly allows them to become adjusted to the new conditions in each position filled, not to speak of the possibility of working out any constructive educational policy, which must require years to be of real value. Having discussed the causes of waste, there remains for us to con- sider the means by which it may be eliminated. I shall consider such remedies as are involved (1) in a readjustment of our school organiza- tion, (2) in a change in the methods and (3) in a reorganization of the materials of instruction. Many experiments have been tried in the reorganization of the ele- mentary and high schools and are in more or less successful operation in various parts of the country. These involve such combinations as a six-year elementary school followed by a six-year high school; a seven- year elementary and a five-year high school; and a six- or seven-year elementary school, a junior high school of one to three years, and a senior high school. All of these combinations, however, still include a total of twelve years in the period of elementary and high-school train- ing and are based upon the assumption that these new types of organ- ization are better adapted to the physical and psychological development of the child. Whatever benefits are claimed as a result have not been in the saving of time in elementary and secondary education. As of practical bearing upon the solution of this important problem,

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46 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY I shall describe in detail an experiment in the elementary and high schools of the school of education of the University of Chicago which has already resulted in the complete elimination of one year from the elementary school and which we expect will ultimately eliminate a ‘second year from the period of secondary education in the high school and junior colleges of the university. These schools occupy a peculiarly advantageous position for the conduct of such an experiment, being private schools unhampered by connection with a large school system and having faculties composed of teachers of rather more than ordinary professional training and interest, so organized that it is possible to treat the various stages of elementary and secondary education as a continuous process. The schools are large enough, having over 800 pupils from the homes of the immediate vicinity, to make the experi- ment typical and of value to other schools and communities. . It should perhaps be stated, at this point, that the program of the university elementary school contains considerable material that is not found in most schools of similar grade. This includes either French or German, which all the pupils take continuously from the beginning of the fourth grade. Much attention is also given to nature study, including, in addition to work in the school gardens, considerable physics, hygiene, zoology and botany. A good deal of emphasis is also laid on instruction in the manual arts and in various industries, such as sewing, weaving, cooking, woodworking and printing. It should be understood that the effort to save time has not involved the elimination or curtailment of any of this work which is regarded as equally impor- tant with the other subjects of instruction. That considerable time has been wasted in elementary schools by teaching material of no practical and little educational value is certain. Arithmetic offers a good illustration in which one may find, from examination of text-books or by consulting the memory of his own school days, a good deal of material of a highly specialized sort which is of no practical value to the pupils, and much more material whose only purpose is to serve as a basis for intellectual gymnastics, the value of which is highly questionable. By far greater waste is involved in the common practise of extended reviews in the upper grades by which each teacher has felt it necessary toward the end of the year to round out her pupils for the work of the year to come. This is not infre- quently supplemented by another period of review at the beginning of the following year. The practise of devoting most of the last half of the eighth grade to a comprehensive review of the entire work of the elementary school is very common. It is a matter of common observa- tion that these reviews are not interesting to the pupils and it may be concluded that they are ineffective from the fact that high-school teach- ers generally complain of the deficient preparation shown by the classes that come up from the lower schools. To such an extent is this recog-

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WASTE IN EDUCATION 47 nized that a widely used text-book in first-year Latin frankly devotes a large number of pages to English grammar to be taken up at the open- ing of the year before attacking the intricacies of the Latin tongue. For the purpose of a better understanding of the material and methods employed in the university schools, about three years ago a series of conferences was begun between the teachers of the high school and of the later years of the elementary school. The material of the seventh and eighth grades and of the first year of the high school was gone over in detail. It was found at once that time was wasted in the repetition of work already done and in the failure to utilize fully some of the training already given in an earlier grade. These departmental conferences, including English, history, mathematics and modern lan- guages, were continued at frequent intervals for a period of one or two years, and at less frequent intervals have become a part of the regular school procedure. They resulted in a thorough understanding, on the part of the teachers of both schools, of the content and method of the work of both the elementary and high schools, and made it possible for the eighth grade to enter the high school last autumn with more than half of the first year’s work already accomplished and for the present seventh. grade to enter the high school next autumn, thus fully eliminat- ing the eighth grade. In this connection it may be interesting to discuss somewhat in detail the steps taken to effect this readjustment in the different departments. In modern languages, children have for many years begun either French or German in the fourth grade and have continued this during the remainder of the elementary school. There is no doubt that pupils at this age take up the study of a spoken foreign language with great interest and advantage. They do not take it up in the same way as it is usually taught to pupils of older years but by the end of the ele- mentary-school course they have made very substantial progress in the use of the language in speaking, writing and understanding. We had been accustomed in the high school to carry these pupils forward in their chosen language in special classes, but they were given little sub- stantial credit for their previous work and not infrequently found them- selves before they had completed the high-school modern language courses, in the same classes as those who had begun their modern language work in the high school. The time spent in the elementary school in the study of French and German was, to some degree for all and to a very large degree for some, absolutely wasted. The modern language conferences resulted in modifications in the work and more particularly in the attitude of the teachers in both schools. Elementary teachers have been giving instruction this year in first-year high-school classes, and high-school teachers have come in frequent contact with the modern language work of the elementary school, and next year

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48 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY will conduct classes in the lower grades. The result has been that pupils from the elementary school will next year go on with the regular work of the second-year high-school classes in modern languages, equally well trained with the pupils who began their language work in the high school, and superior to them in their feeling for the language and in their ability to pronounce it accurately. The adjustment in English was comparatively easy. It was found that here there was considerable unnecessary repetition of material. By eliminating this and securing definite progress at each point in the course it was found possible to promote the eighth grade directly into the second-year work in high-school English. The class thus promoted this year is proving one of the best of our divisions in second-year work. In mathematics, as I have already indicated, there is likely to be much waste. By eliminating this much may be saved, but the most effective results in mathematics teaching can not be secured without recasting our material for the upper grades of the elementary and the earlier years of the high school. Much material from constructive geometry and the use of the equation in securing the value of the un- known quantity could be introduced into the grades naturally and with advantage to the pupil at the time, which would result in a considerable saving at the point at which formal algebra and geometry are taken up, with tremendous toll of failure, in the high school. In our own high school the material of the first two years has been thoroughly reorgan- ized, interweaving elementary elgebra, plane geometry and some trig- onometry, in a way to secure a more unified and sequential development of mathematical knowledge and power without the waste involved in the usual method of breaking this material up into the usual arbitrary divi- sions. While the introduction into the grades of the geometric and algebraic material referred to above has not been fully secured, we suc- ceeded last year in giving our eighth grade fully one half of the first- year high-school mathematics. This year the eighth grade is taking the entire first-year high-school work in mathematics and in the monthly uniform tests which have been given to all our first-year mathematics classes, have every time stood well above the average of the regular high-school classes. The elementary school, as already indicated, gives much attention to elementary science. In the high school a course in general science has been organized which is required of first-year pupils. It was found, on investigation, that this first-year science course was uninteresting and of little value to pupils of our own elementary school by reason of its repetitious nature. These pupils are now allowed to omit this course and take either in their first year or later some of the specialized science courses designed to follow the general introductory course. A similar lack of coordination in manual training, in which our own

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WASTE IN EDUCATION 49 elementary-school pupils took the same work as those who had had no previous manual training, has also been remedied. By using whatever the pupils bring from the elementary school and building upon this their first work in the high school, we have secured a high degree of correlation between the work of the two schools, which has resulted in reducing to a minimum the shock of change from one school to the other. By reducing the amount of unnecessary reviewing and the repetition of material in successive years we have saved one year from the elementary school without undue forcing of pupils, without loss of anything of value, and with positive gain in the mental attitude and habits of the pupils. It is probably neither possible nor desirable to save still further time from the elementary school. There remains for us to consider the period of secondary education. It should be observed at the outset that the four-year high-school course does not represent the actual range of secondary education either as regards the natural development of the pupil or as regards the material and method of instruction. Most of the work of the first and much of that of the second year in college is secondary, both in content and method. In earlier times when the range of subjects taught in high schools and academies was small and the col- lege requirements were few in number and specific in content, the student on entering college continued in the same subjects and from the same point at which his work had ended in the lower school. But with the greatly expanded scope of high-school courses and the corresponding increase in the range of subjects accepted for admission to college, it has become necessary for the college to offer elementary courses in almost every subject of the curriculum. We find in college beginning courses in Greek, French, and German, and in Latin the courses cor- responding to the second and third year of the high school; elementary courses. in all sciences; in mathematics one half the courses offered in any first-class high school ; and in history a repetition of most or all the work of the high school. The practise of colleges to admit students with conditions some- times equivalent to a year or even more of high-school work indicates the acceptance on the part of the college faculties of the fact that the first year or more of the college course is concerned with secondary work. The latest statistics of the colleges and universities of the North. Central Association illustrates this. This table shows that of the seventy-three institutions on the list of No One One and Two Three Units Conditions| Condition | One Half | Conditions| Conditions | No Rule Total Required | “Allowed | Allowed | Conditions| Allowed | Allowed 14 1 0 1 1 0 0 3 15 4 19 8 27 5 2 65 16 0 0 0 2 2 1 5 VOL. LXXXvV.—4.

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50 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY the association, although all but three require fifteen or more units for admission, in only four are fifteen units actually required, while twenty- two admit students with fourteen units; eight with thirteen and one half units; twenty-nine with thirteen units; one with twelve and one half units; and six with twelve units. If this represents the practise of the stronger colleges of the Middle West, it must be true that many institutions are admitting students with even less units of preparation. The importance of economy of time in education has long been recognized by representatives of the higher institutions. A notable dis- cussion of this subject from the point of view of the university is found in the proceedings of the National Educational Association for 1903, participated in by Ex-Commissioner Brown, Presidents Eliot, Butler, Harper, Dean West, and others. President Eliot urged that the boy be prepared to enter college at eighteen and that the college course be reduced to three years. A saving of two years was to be secured not by reducing the content, but “by better organization of the whole course of education from the beginning to the end, by better methods of teaching, and by large and early freedom of choice among different studies.” At Harvard it has become possible for the abler and more diligent students to secure the baccalaureate degree in three years by accomplishing in that time the work formerly done in four years by all students receiving the degree. President Butler, insisting upon the importance of preserv- ing the integrity of the college, urged that the student should be pre- pared to enter college at the age of seventeen, or in some cases at six- teen. To preserve the college he proposed “to fix and enforce a stand- ard of admission which can be met normally by a combined elementary and secondary-school course of not more than ten years well spent and to keep out of the baccalaureate course purely professional subjects pur- sued for professional ends by professional methods.” For students in- tending to pursue professional courses later, however, he regards the four-year college course too long. “ Pedagogs,” he says, “suppose that the more time a boy spends in school and college the better; educators know the contrary.” “There should be,” he continued, “a college course two years in length, carefully considered as a thing by itself and not merely the first part of a three-year or a four-year course, which will enable intending professional students to spend this time as advantageously as possible in purely liberal studies.” This principle has been successfully carried out in many of our universities. Presi- dent Harper also regarded it as important to preserve the four-year college course, but thought sixteen or seventeen the desirable age for entering college. : From an investigation on the “Changes in the Age of College Graduation” published in the Report of the Commissioner of Education for 1902, the author, W. Scott Thomas, proposes three possible means of reducing the period of education:

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WASTE IN EDUCATION 51 First, cut off one year from the college course, without lowering the entrance requirements; secondly, in view of the far greater efficiency of the secondary school, reduce the entrance requirements to college, and retaining the four year’s course, permit the boy to enter college a year younger; thirdly, drop one year from the college course, increase the length of the actual weeks of residence and instruction to thirty-eight or forty, and endeavor to disabuse the mind of the average collegian of the belief that college is a place to dawdle and loaf four years for the sake of a degree that he does not earn, but which he generally gets just the same. The discussion has recently been resumed by President Judson of the University of Chicago. It is fair to interpret his laconic statement that “The best thing to do with the freshman year is to abolish it” as meaning that the period of secondary instruction should be reduced by one year. Whether this be done by shortening the periods now admin- istered by the high school or the college is of less importance. The problem is clearly stated: assuming that two years must be eliminated from the period of elementary and secondary education, find the years. It is plain that this can be done only by a careful study of the material and methods employed and a reorganization of the work of the period involved. It is a study involving not only the twelve years which have preceded the college course, but also the earlier part of the college course itself. Having found it possible to eliminate one year from the elementary school, the problem is reduced one half. I am confident that conferences of high-school and college teachers in foreign languages, English, mathematics, history and science, going over the materials and methods of secondary work in the same careful manner employed by the departments in the university schools above described, could easily eliminate a year by the avoidance of duplication and closer coordination of courses. In the matter of foreign languages all will agree that it is much better for the elementary work to be done in the high school. In fact, there is abundant evidence in the practise of European countries and in some schools in this country that the study of foreign language may be begun advantageously before the high-school age. With improved meth- ods in the high school and better correlation between high school and college, it should be possible for students to complete the elementary work in foreign language and either drop the study on entering college or go on with more advanced work without the repetition of any work already done. Against the elimination of elementary work in foreign language in college it may be urged that with the great variety of sub- jects included in the high-school curriculum many students will com- plete their high-school courses without foreign languages, and as colleges require a certain amount of foreign language of all candidates for a degree, they must either offer elementary courses or throw the student back upon the high school for a still longer period of preparation. But as the student who goes to college must either present foreign language

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52 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY for entrance or take it up on entering college, it would be altogether to his advantage to induce him to take it up in the high school. And this could in most cases be accomplished, particularly if he could know that it would result in the saving of time. As for English, it is a recognized fact that the first college courses in composition and literature are of an elementary character, quite within the reach of the high school to accomplish in the time now devoted to the study. This as recognized by the practise of some colleges which allow the better trained pupils credit for these courses on proving by examination, and in some cases by the recommendation of their high- school instructors, that they are competent to go on with more advanced work. First-class high schools are able to give the preparation required for the present college courses in three years. A great gain would be made in training high-school pupils in the effective use of the vernacu- lar both in speaking and writing, if not only the teachers of English, but those of all subjects, would come to share in this training. At present the pupil feels that high standards of form are required only in the English class rooms. If in history, science and other subjects, the same standards of form in the notes and papers and in spoken language were required as in the English classes, our students would be better prepared for college in less time than is now devoted to the work. Many papers required in other departments might also be used to meet the requirement for written work in English, thus saving time which the pupil devotes to the preparation of themes used by the English teacher alone. In science, the preparation at present required by colleges is doubt- less of a more specialized form than our high schools can profitably give to the large number of pupils who will never enter college. It should be possible, however, to organize courses in high school of the highest value to the students as a training in the materials and method of science, which could also form the basis for further work in college without going over again the same ground covered in the high school. High-school science would be more profitable in itself as well as for college preparation if the various courses in the high school were organ- ized in a more unified and progressive sequence. Their value as prepa- ration for further courses in college would be greatly enhanced if college teachers could become well acquainted with the aim and method of high-school science. The situation in history may be described as similar to that of the sciences. Of both history and science, it may rightly be said that some and often all the work of a student has been taken in the earlier years of the high school when he was too immature to pursue the subject in any other than a most elementary manner. In this case repetition is not only necessary, but desirable, if the student is to take up these sub- jects in college. Repetition is not necessarily wasteful if it be from @

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WASTE IN EDUCATION 53 different point of view and for the sake of developing more advanced work. But elementary college courses in which pupils who have al- ready covered the same ground in high school are taught together with those who have had no previous training in the subject force the conclu- sion that the time spent in either the high school or the college is wasted. If our colleges are to continue to offer in their various departments elementary work which may be as well done in the high school, economy of time might be secured by allowing high-grade students credit for a certain amount of this work, even though they had already been allowed admission credit for the same work. Given a certain minimum of required work involving continuity, say ten units in four subjects with not less than two in any one, the likelihood of success in college depends more upon a student’s ability and habits of work than upon his pres- entation of any fixed number of additional units. A study of the records made in the Harvard Medical and Law Schools by graduates of Harvard College, published by President Lowell in the Educational Review (1912), showed that the quality of work in these professional schools corresponded very closely with the work done by the same stu- dent in college and was influenced very little by the type of courses pursued during his college course. There is no doubt that a student entering college with thirteen units secured with a high grade is better fitted for a successful college course than one entering with fifteen units secured with a low grade. A very serious obstacle to efficiency in high-school work is found in the lack of incentive offered to able pupils to do their best. Most of the adminis- trative machinery of our schools and much of the teaching energy are spent in an effort to lift the indifferent and incompetent over the barrier of a passing grade, while the able or exceptional pupil is allowed to acquire the habit of being satisfied with attainment far below his capacities. In most schools it is not regarded as good form to secure high grades. The “gentleman’s grade” has come to be recognized as well below the median. Distinctions resulting from good scholastic records are usually petty and unsubstantial and make small appeal to students in general. The position of valedictorian is not held in suffi- cient estéem to induce many boys and girls to pay the price of four years of hard study. A few schools have adopted the plan of giving extra credit for high grades. In the university high school we give 1.2 units for a year’s work with a grade of A, 1.1 units for a grade of B, 1 unit for a grade of C, and .9 unit for a grade of D. A substantial reward is thus secured for excellent work and a corresponding loss for work of low grade. We have observed a steady improvement in the quality of our work since the adoption of this system of awarding credit. Several students will be graduated in June who would not otherwise be able to do so, exceptional students having secured in two years since

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54 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY the adoption of the plan two full units of excess credit. What attitude the college will take toward such cases I do not know, but I am con- vinced that this student with only thirteen units on the usual basis for reckoning admission credits is by all means the best prepared student in the entire class. With the rapidly growing tendency for college author- ities to place the responsibility for the decision as to the fitness of pupils to enter college upon the high school, I see no reason why students should not be accepted from properly accredited schools a limited part of whose credits have been given because of exceptionally good work. Another means for increasing the efficiency of school work is in the improvement of class-room methods. One of the most frequently reiter- ated complaints made by high-school and college teachers is that our pupils do not know how to study. They certainly do not in most cases, and those who do have not consciously been taught the art by their teachers. Each teacher who makes the complaint lays the fault upon the teachers in the grades below and recognizes no responsibility on his own part for teaching this neglected lesson. The teacher of Cesar thinks it so important to get his pupils through the four books which long tradition has assigned to his year’s work, that he has no time to lose in teaching his pupils how to study. Let those who can not keep the pace fall by the wayside! And the dead scattered along the road each year are as numerous as those who fell in the most sanguinary of Cesar’s campaigns in Gaul. The usual practise of daily assignments of home work to be done under varying and often most unfavorable con- ditions, followed by a period spent in an ineffectual attempt to secure anything approaching an adequate and coherent recitation of the day’s assignment, affords little incentive to the bright pupil and little training to the dull one. The method is most ineffectual so far as the mastery © of the immediate material is concerned? and breeds slipshod, if not dis- — honest, habits of work and of thinking. Some valuable experiments have been made recently, showing that without any home study at all, by devoting the class period to careful teaching followed by work under ' the direction and supervision of the teacher, more actual ground can be covered and better results secured at the end of a given time, than under the usual recitation method. This method has been employed in Latin in several New Hampshire schools, in which the classes have covered in three years the amount of work usually done in four, and the fourth year has been given to the reading of college authors in an amount and with a facility which is surprising. And all this has been done with much less than the usual elimination of pupils by failure. When teachers of the upper years of the elementary school and the first year of the high school come to realize that it is more important that pupils learn right habits of work than that they get through a certain 1 See the article ‘‘ Teaching High School Pupils How to Study,’’ by Ernst R. Breslict in the School Review XX: 505-15.

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WASTE IN EDUCATION 55 number of pages in a text-book we shall find that the actual accomplish- ments measured in material mastered will be greater, that school work will be done with far greater zest, and, what is more valuable, that the pupils will have acquired methods of study which will greatly increase their efficiency in the more advanced work of later years. It is this method of teaching instead of hearing recitations which, more than any other single cause, characterizes the work of the German schools and makes possible the greater accomplishment during the period of second- ary education. Our present school day and year could be considerably lengthened with great gain in efficiency and without danger of overtaxing the pupil’s strength. Much recreational and occupational activity has been added to the work of the school without any corresponding addition to the time spent in school. With the greater variety and interest secured by improved methods of teaching, and with much less work assigned for home study, a longer day would add greatly to the pupil’s attainment in a given number of weeks. If, in addition, the long period of vacation with its accompanying dissipation of the results already secured, could be reduced, it is not unreasonable to expect that three years would be sufficient for the accomplishment of what is now done in four. The large number of pupils who now voluntarily attend vacation schools in our large cities suggests the conclusion that many students would wel- come such an extension of the school year. To summarize this discussion briefly. Waste in our elementary and secondary education is due chiefly to: (1) a lack of coordination be- tween the separate parts of our school organization; (2) to the lack of training of teachers; and (3) to the short tenure of position of teachers. A remedy may be sought in: (1) a readjustment of our school organ- ization; (2) in the elimination of unnecessary reviews and repetitions ; (3) in improved methods of instruction; (4) by furnishing substantial incentive to better work on the part of the pupils; (5) and by lengthen- ing the amount of time given to instruction during the school year. Any effective treatment of the problem will depend upon the recog- nition of the fact that we are dealing with a unified process extending through the entire period of elementary and secondary education. The problem can be solved only when teachers employed at every point in the process, including the instructors in the early years of the college course, devote serious attention, not merely to the small sphere of their immediate activity, but to the materials and method of the entire period involved.

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY THE STRUGGLE FOR EQUALITY IN THE UNITED STATES Vill By Prorgessor CHARLES F. EMERICK SMITH COLLEGE THE CURRENT TREND OF AFFarrs. III No feature of the present era is more full of promise than the grow- ing strength of the working classes. The gain in self-respect, political influence, ability to cooperate and capacity for self-help during the nineteenth century is almost beyond belief. This is notably true where the working classes occupy a strategic position in bargaining with their employers, as in the building trades and in connection with railways. Quite the reverse of the progressive deterioration of the masses pre- dicted by some prophets of disaster is taking place. The rank and file of society is the recruiting ground of so much that is best among our political and industrial leaders that it is obviously the mainstay of our civilization. If any one thing has been clearly demonstrated it is the capacity of the man of humble origin to make good in a surprising num- ber of instances if he is only given a chance. It is a mistake to associ- ate the working-class movement with turbulence and disorder to the exclusion of the fortitude and self-sacrifice displayed in attaining its ends. The acts of lawlessness are, after all, sporadic, and are so gener- ally recognized as anti-social that society can usually be depended upon to suppress them with a firm hand. Unfortunately, there is less cer- tainty that the community possesses the foresight, patience and resolu- tion necessary to deal intelligently with the straitened circumstances and conditions out of which lawlessness springs. Among the factors that are welding together the diverse linguistic, racial and religious ele- ments that come to us from other lands, few are as influential as the labor movement. The independence and self-reliance of working people, and the quickness with which they resent an insult, are common sub- jects of remark among employers of domestic and of other help. The point of view of the employer is easy enough to understand, but it calls attention to a situation that is socially hopeful. Even from the stand- point of employers, a working class that knows its rights and dares main- tain them is to be preferred to one that is servilely submissive. It puts employers on their mettle and under bonds of good behavior. Much as socialism, when it goes to certain extremes, is to be feared, it renders wealth less arrogant in its demands, makes powerfully for the correction

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THE STRUGGLE FOR EQUALITY 57 of many of the manifest evils of the times, and is, on the whole, a good rather than a bad omen for society. I am, of course, aware that the working classes have no monopoly of virtue. Their ranks have their full share of those whom Horace Greeley described as “the conceited, the crotchety, the selfish, the headstrong, the pugnacious, the unappreciated, the played-out, the idle and the good-for-nothing generally.” The position of the employer, conse- quently, is not in a bed of roses. His best efforts are ofttimes miscon- strued and rewarded with ingratitude. Harassed by walking delegates, it is not strange that he sometimes concludes that his employees ought to starve till they come to their senses. “Lay a silver dollar on the shelf,” an employer of railway labor once remarked, “and it will be there when you come back. Lay a working man on the shelf and he will starve. This is the solution of the labor problem.” These words well express the inability of labor to hold out in any contest with capital. None the less, the majority of employers in their calmer moments do not court a contest with their employees. In the first place, the contest may be a protracted one and employers are not unmindful of their own losses. In this age of organized sympathy, those on a strike are often supported for weeks by contributions from those at work. In the second place, there is a better solution of the labor problem. The more en- lightened employers find it good business to manifest a disposition to do the square thing, and to talk over the facts with their men fully and frankly. Because a man is getting a living wage, or one well above what he once got, is no reason for smothering his ambition for one still higher. The suppression of ambition would be fatal to progress. There can be no enduring peace between capital and labor save on the basis of fair dealing by both parties. Attention is sometimes called to the fact that the working class, by playing upon the fears of rival politicians, can extort legislation unduly favorable to itself. Instances of such legislation undoubtedly occur and they are a source of danger to the state. It is doubtful, however, whether they are as common as the control of the state in the interests of other classes, especially in the United States where social legislation lays so far behind many European countries. It is true that social legislation is piling heavy burdens upon the state. But it is a worthy object and it is far less expensive than modern military establishments which it helps to keep within bounds. Viewed simply as an investment, the cost of so- cial legislation may more than justify itself. It is said that social insur- ance in Germany has made the working classes more contented and effi- cient and has contributed to the rapid industrial advance of the empire. The world has never been unfamiliar with class rule. But the spectacle of the working class using the state for the advancement of its own in- terests is so modern that it strikes many minds as especially dangerous.

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58 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY There is a feeling that the working class will use its power with less moderation than the capitalist class. It is doubtful whether this feeling is well founded. There is no force in mere numbers unless they act to- gether, and there is little reason to suppose that the working class is any more nearly united than the capitalists in our politics. The demands of working people sometimes appear more brazen than those of capitalists, but this is an element of weakness rather than strength. So long as the political activities of any faction are not insidious, society has little to fear. There is a good deal of dissension in the ranks of labor. Dissim- ilarity rather than similarity of interest between trades is the basis of trade-unionism. The downfall of the Knights of Labor is commonly attributed to disregarding this basis. By admitting workmen of differ- ent trades into its local organizations, the seed of dissolution was sown. Many workingmen, such as those in the building trades and the railway trainmen, have more in common with their employers than they have with the great mass of unskilled labor. The railway trainmen are not affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, and the latter is on unfriendly terms with the Industrial Workers of the World. The po- litical or parliamentary socialists in turn differ with the I. W. W. on the important matter of tactics. Moreover, socialism as a political move- ment is divided into the orthodox followers of Marx and the reformists or possibilists, a line of cleavage destined to become much more marked the moment socialism captures the reins of power. Men’s economic interests are rarely single; in the complexity of modern in- dustrial society their relations are not confined to a single group; they can not be classified solely from one viewpoint. The strata are many, the cross-sections in- numerable. Geographical division, occupational interest, color and racial differ- ences cut athwart the symmetrical lines of the class-struggle theorist. Not merely do the interests of workmen and employer diverge, so far as the sharing of the product goes, but the German agrarian struggles against the manufacturer, the small shopkeeper against the great department store, the independent manu- facturer against the trust, the white bricklayer or fireman against the negro, the American trade unionist against the immigrant, carpenters’ against woodwork- ers’ union in jurisdictional disputes. Employers and employed unite in a closed shop, closed-masters’ agreement to prey on the consuming public; trade unions back trusts’ demands for more room at the tariff trough.18 It is only fair to say, however, that certain aspects of the labor move- ment can not but excite the apprehension of the disinterested observer. For one thing, there is serious ground for regret that the different classes of labor are advancing at such unequal rates. On the one hand, there is an aristocracy of organized labor that revels in prosperity. On the other hand, there is much unskilled labor that gets less than a liv- ing wage. There are labor monopolies which by threatening to strike 180, D. Skelton, ‘‘Socialism, a Critical Analysis,’’ pp. 112-113.

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THE STRUGGLE FOR EQUALITY 59 can bring such pressure to bear as to secure demands far beyond their just deserts, and part of what they are able to extort is at the expense of their less fortunate brethren. To those who have more is given, while from those who have not is taken away part of even the little that they have. The rules governing apprenticeship sometimes aim at mo- nopoly. The stay-at-home vote is as fatal to competent leadership in the labor world as in politics. The sympathy of the public with labor is sometimes so strong that it condones acts of violence. On occasion the demands of labor are so immoderate as to threaten the goose that lays the golden egg. It is possible that this condition has about been reached in the case of railway labor. The professed object of the militant branch of the Industrial Workers of the World is to take over the capital of the country by destroying the business of the employer. To this end, costly strikes are precipitated, materials and machinery wantonly damaged, the good will of the business wilfully injured, and inefficiency on the part of the workers openly encouraged and practised. The fact that organized labor, in general, is seemingly so indifferent to increasing the efficiency of the workers and so largely contents itself with strengthening their bargaining power is to be regretted. It unwarrantedly interferes at times with proper discipline by the employer. The shallow view that the way to make work and raise the general level of wages is for every man to confine himself to a minimum stint is unfortunately too fre- quently a fundamental article of faith in labor circles. Organized labor less frequently aims at increasing the efficiency of production than organized capital. IV There are some indications that private property, far from being on its last legs, is taking on new life. At any rate, it is showing symp- toms of great vitality. Man has an incurable desire for property. This is nowhere more conspicuous than among a large portion of the for- eign born. The industry and thrift of the German immigrants are proverbial, and much the same thing is true of the Norwegian, Swedish, Italian and Jewish immigrants. The Poles in the Connecticut Valley work from early dawn till dusk at weeding onions and practise the strictest economy. They are buying farm after farm and are noted for meeting their obligations on the dot. The yearning for one’s own is so deep and strong that in many Polish boarding houses each man’s meat, potatoes, etc., is purchased for his individual account and cooked in separate vessels for his personal use. If some portions of the population are given to extravagance, other portions carry the practise of thrift to an excess, in many instances going without things necessary to health which they are abundantly able to buy.

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60 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY The drift of current opinion is not hostile to property per se. Its animus is rather against special privilege of all kinds. It is also bent on subjecting property that has outgrown the restraints of competition to political control. Where political control proves inadequate, how- ever, there is a disposition to resort to collective ownership and opera- tion. It is undeniable, also, that the right of private property in such gifts of nature as forest and mineral wealth, and in the future “un- earned increment” of land in large cities, is being more and more called in question. But, on the other hand, practically every one recog- nizes the indefeasible right of a man to property in any value that his labor creates, and the great majority of minds approve the right to property in the product which capital creates under competitive condi- tions that are normal and fair. The preponderance of opinion still strongly favors private ownership and initiative, and relies upon self- interest as the fountain source of the additional capital required for the further development of our resources. It is noteworthy that socialism limits its attack on property to things instrumental in exploiting the working classes. A member of the Socialist party in such good and regular standing as Spargo contemplates the retention of private prop- erty in a portion of producer’s as well as of consumer’s goods. In ap- pealing to farmers and small dealers, socialism is under the necessity of moderating its attacks on property, thereby losing something of its purely proletarian character. It is significant, also, that the national constitution of the Socialist party, approved by referendum in 1912, de- clares that any member of the party who advocates crime, sabotage, or other methods of violence as a weapon of the working class, to aid in its emancipation, shall be expelled from member- ship in the party.19 There is little prospect of a contest in which all the property owners will be found in one camp and all those without property in another. The normal craving in every man of ambition to accumulate something of his own works strongly against such an alignment. In most con- tests, those who ride are not pitted singly against those who walk, but | various combinations of these two classes constitute the contending parties. Moreover, the combinations are rarely the same in two succes- sive contests. Many of the great reforms that have been adopted have not de- stroyed property, but have changed conditions in such a way as to in- crease the incentives in life, and to enlarge the sum total of things capable of ownership. The abolition of slavery simply transferred slave property from the master to him who had been the slave to the mutual good of both parties. Railway control and effective regulation of trusts 19 National Constitution of the Socialist Party, Section 6, Article IT.

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THE STRUGGLE FOR EQUALITY 61 do not make the community poorer, but give increased zest to life by interfering with the few plundering the many. If it were practicable to restore the unlawful pickings of industrial combinations to those whose pockets have been filched, there would be no destruction of prop- erty, but merely a return of value to those to whom it rightfully be- longs. The control which the community is asserting over children, in so far as it makes the child stronger mentally and physically, increases the value of the property right which the child at maturity has in him- self. The greater freedom accorded women, married or single, includ- ing the recognition of their individuality in the ownership of property, has merely lodged a control in them which was formerly exercised by their husbands or fathers. Furthermore, an increase of collective property may enlarge rather than contract the sphere of private property by giving the individual more playroom in life. This is the normal consequence of public ex- penditures for education. The municipalization of public works, such as water, lighting and surface transportation, has contributed to the prosperity of private industry in many European cities. If the state were completely freed from the control of special interests, if all forms of exploitation were abolished, including the various kinds of corporate rascality, it may well be that private property in numberless directions would be given a new lease of life. The lack of sympathy between cap- ital and labor is an ominous fact. But every successful attempt to bridge the chasm, every reform that makes the working class feel that it has something more than a stipulated wage at stake in industry or that makes the relation between wages and efficiency more obvious, will make for the continuance of the existing order. It is no longer prudent for the state to take a negative attitude toward the social problem. Positive action is imperative or it will fall into the hands of the more venturesome portion of society. The Liberal party in Great Britain has pointed the way. By keeping abreast of the times it has helped to prevent a radical brand of socialism from sweeping the country. As Lowell puts it: It is only when the reasonable and practicable are denied that men demand the unreasonable and the impracticable; only when the possible is made difficult that they fancy the impossible easy.2° Vv It is possible that our institutions may be wrecked by innovation, but our danger lies rather in not responding rapidly enough to the reasonable demands of the times. Our different states are so many po- litical experiment stations for the trying out of new ideas, and a dan- 20 Op. cit., pp. 16-17.

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62 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY gerous fad is apt to be found out and discarded before it makes its way over many states. If any features of the Oregon plan of government prove unwise, it is only a matter of time when they will be abandoned by the people of the state themselves. The best way to conserve what is good is sedulously to remove what is bad. The nation that is genuinely progressive is in the best sense conservative. The man who gains recognition and promotion is in- clined to take due credit to himself and to think that, after all, the world is not fundamentally wrong. Hence, there is no better way to maintain the social order than to remove every species of favoritism that prevents men of ability from advancing in life. The effect is at once to strengthen the powers that be and to deprive the forces of dis- content of able leadership. The stability of the social order in England lies in the fact that the nation has not stood still, but has from time to time adapted its institutions to changing conditions. This is probably the most distinctive fact in English history. Every one is aware that revolutionary outbursts frequently miscarry by creating a reaction. But the reverse is also true. Where the dominant class places freedom of discussion under the ban and will permit no change, as has been true much of the time in Russia, the forces that make for progress have no alternative but revolution. The French Revolution itself was largely due to the obstructionists who held out blindly against reform. The reactionaries of our time are assuming a heavy responsibility. American democracy is commonly associated with an open mind. We have avoided the extreme conservatism to which Sir Henry Maine thought a broad suffrage inclined.** Our material civilization has been one of progressive improvement. Our inventive ingenuity has a world- wide reputation. We have become par excellence the land of large-scale production. The prevalence of the reading habit has familiarized the public with the more important achievements of science. The doctrine of the ascent of man has displaced that of the fall of man in secular affairs and to some extent in theology. We have been in a measure free from many of the old-world traditions. “The American people, as a rule, approach a new object, a new theory, or a new practise; with a degree of hope and confidence which no other people exhibit.”*? Such facts as these indicate a state of mind favorable to progress, but they do not warrant the belief that we are prone to revolutionary suggestion. Contrary to the common supposition, there is a large streak of con- servatism in the American people. Bagehot claimed for the people of Great Britain the proud distinction of excelling every other people in “the virtue of stupidity,” “nature’s favorite resource for preserving steadiness of conduct and consistency of opinion.”** In this respect, 21 ‘Popular Government,’’ pp. 35, 36, 41 and 98. 22 Charles W. Eliot, op. cit., p. 63. 23 Thomas Nixon Carver, ‘‘ Sociology and Social Progress,’’ pp. 501-502.

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THE STRUGGLE FOR EQUALITY 63 the American people are not so far behind those of Great Britain as many suppose. Not until 1912 was a federal bureau established to gather information about children. We were one of the last among the leading nations of the world to take steps to abolish the wholly un- necessary disease known as “ phossy jaw.” ‘The visionary and imprac- ticable enthusiast is probably accorded as scant a hearing in the United States as in any other country. Our toleration of all sorts of fads and isms should not be mistaken for approval. In many industries, such as steel, agricultural implements, the textile trades and dressed meats, the individual has become a cog in a huge industrial machine. Never- theless, a return to the scheme of production formerly in vogue is not seriously considered. Probably the Socialists are as much opposed to sacrificing the efficiency of large-scale production as any one else. We pride ourselves on our freedom from tradition, all the time oblivious to the fact that we have been rapidly gathering a set of traditions all our own. We have clung tenaciously to competition as a regulator of the railway industry long after it has broken down, and we are seeking to restore competitive conditions by dissolving the trusts. We have a strong aversion to a third term for the presidency. We still retain the form of the electoral college, and the custom of Congress not meeting in regular session till thirteen months after its members have been chosen. A population that is instinctively radical would hardly have tolerated our judicial system for more than one hundred years. Our system of checks and balances is of the very essence of conservatism. We content ourselves with a written constitution so rigid that, like a religious creed, the only well-recognized mode of amendment is by interpretation and the slow process of accretion. Interstate commerce has increased by leaps and bounds, and many of our industries have become nation-wide in character, and yet we retain a distribution of powers between the states and the nation intended for a time when comparatively little commerce crossed state lines, when industry was largely a neighborhood affair, and when the sense of nationality was weak. Our constitution antedates “the railroad, the steamboat, and the French Revolution, and was contemporary with George the Third, Marie Antoinette, and flintlock muskets.”** An appreciative foreign observer remarks: So far as their Constitution is concerned the American people have shown themselves the most stable of all people. Their Constitution is to-day the same as when it was created; in the century and a quarter that has elapsed since then, the constitution of England—England, the very type of conservatism—has silently changed; Englishmen have seen disestablishment, the enlargement of the franchise, real parliamentary representation and government, the removal of. political disabilities, the last relics of feudal privileges destroyed. To speak of 24 Walter E. Weyl, op. cit., p. 15.

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64 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY Germany and France, of Italy and Russia, of all Europe and all South America, is to recall constitutions made and unmade, and codes that bear little relation to their originals.25 Our most distinctive and persistent tradition is our self-reliant individualism. This is at once our strength and our weakness. It has hastened the industrial conquest of a continent, but it has wasted our natural resources, needlessly sacrificed human life, and it has been indifferent to the general welfare. So long as private profit is con- sistent with public ends, it is a source of strength, but the moment it becomes inconsistent it is a source of weakness. The flagrant evils of American life are largely due to applying to present-day conditions a philosophy suited to the frontier. We can not regulate the railways and the trusts, reform the tariff, or abolish the slums without encoun- tering an overweening individualism. The disregard of speed ordi- nances by automobilists, the prostitution of public office to private ends, the corrupting influence of business on our political life, and the all too prevalent spirit of lawnessness are traceable to this characteristic. We have been optimistic to a fault. We have cherished the delusion that our manifest evils if left alone will eradicate themselves. We have assumed that we are in a special sense the chosen people of God. No matter which way we turn, the “ psychological twist” which originated in pioneer days interferes with our becoming a socialized democracy. VI The opponents of the demand for a larger measure of popular government forget the growing intelligence of the people. Schools and colleges, books, newspapers and magazines, modern transportation and communication, business intercourse, the trade union, political dis- cussion, the numerous clubs and Chautauqua circles, and the growing density of population which brings mind more frequently in contact with mind, are so many agencies for promoting the general enlighten- ment. Rural free delivery, the telephone, the interurban trolley, and the influence of the city are widening the mental horizon of the farmer. More fundamental is the influence of the scientific spirit to which Darwin’s works gave such a decided impetus. Laboratory methods of research are pushing forward the frontier of knowledge. Many of our universities and technical schools are devoting themselves to pure sci- ence as well as to vocational training. Electrical machinery, the aero- plane, the automobile and wireless telegraphy arouse the’ scientific curiosity of the young. They also engender respect for the profession of the engineer who delves into the mysteries of nature. Besides, the ideals of democracy are permeating all classes of society. 25 A. Maurice Low, ‘‘The American People, A Study in National Psychol- ogy, The Harvesting of a Nation,’’ Vol. 2, p. 300. ;

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THE STRUGGLE FOR EQUALITY 65 John Stuart Mill aptly said more than sixty years ago: Of the working men, at least in the more advanced countries of Europe, it may be pronounced certain, that the patriarchial or paternal system of govern- ment is one to which they will not again be subject. That question was de- cided, when they were taught to read, and allowed access to newspapers and political tracts; when dissenting preachers were suffered to go among them, and appeal to their faculties and feelings in opposition to the creeds professed and eountenanced by their superiors; when they were brought together in numbers, to work socially under the same roof; when railways enabled them to shift from place to place, and change their patrons and employers as easily as their coats; when they were encouraged to seek a share in government, by means of the elec- toral franchise. The working classes have taken their interests into their own hands, and are perpetually showing that they think the interests of their employ- ers not identical with their own, but opposite to them. Some among the higher classes flatter themselves that these tendencies may be counteracted by moral and religious education: but they have let the time go by for giving an education which can serve their purpose. The principles of the reformation have reached as low down in society as reading and writing, and the poor will not much longer accept morals and religion of other people’s prescribing.2¢ The common man is not only more intelligent, but he has a keener sense of self-respect. This is partly because he is better off materially. Penury and want have a brutalizing effect because they prevent man from leading a wholesome, normal life. The material comforts of life not only affect our physical welfare, but they influence our mental and moral outlook. Give a man something more than the bare necessities of life and. you make it possible for his better nature, his desire for books, travel and education, to compete with his lower or sensual self. Doubtless something more than an increase of this world’s goods is: necessary to the reformation and upbuilding of character. The springs that issue from the hidden recesses of the heart are no less important. An increase of wealth unaccompanied by a wholesome expansion of desires is a curse rather than a blessing. Great wealth is often ener- vating. Habits of luxurious ease are degrading. There can be no doubt, however, that the comforts and decencies which the nineteenth century brought within the reach of the masses have done much to civilize mankind. Besides, the process of acquiring wealth has been helpful. It has forced men to contrive and has saved them from idle and aimless lives. Commercial intercourse has done much to widen the mental horizon, to undermine prejudice and to banish provincialism. The problems of the day which give character to the present age are not due to the growing ignorance and degradation of the electorate. We are not witnessing “the revolt of the unfit,” but the demands of the “fit” for simple justice. The spread of intelligence and a stronger spirit of fair play are liberating new wants, pointing the way to new ambitions, and are rendering men more self-assertive, more insistent 26 Op. cit., p. 756. VOL, LXXXxv.—5.

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’ with David Lloyd George, the Outlook, Vol. 101, June 22, 1912, p. 398. 66 THE POPULAR. SCIENCE MONTHLY upon justice. “ Wider knowledge,” says Lloyd George, “is a creating in the mind of the workman growing dissatisfaction with the conditions under which he is forced to live.”?" Besides, the improvement in econ- omic conditions that has occurred within a life time whets the appetite for something more, and the shortening of the working day’gives men time to realize how inferior their state is in comparison with their fondest hopes. The hope of better things in our present social system has to some extent taken the place of religious belief. The failure of incomes among a large portion of the population to keep step with rising prices always makes men chafe. But when the expectations of men for something better are once aroused, such a rise of prices as the last fifteen years have witnessed is doubly trying. When a nation like China, in which ancestor worship and reverence for the past have been time-honored points of view, is shaken to its very foundation by a political and social revolution, we in America who profess democracy as our ideal can hardly hope to escape the sweep of a movement that aims at uplifting the common lot and according the masses a larger voice in the management of affairs. The movement for the betterment of mankind seems destined to go on whatever befalls the fortunes of particular individuals. The forces of democracy are so strong that it matters little whether a Roosevelt, a Taft or a Wilson is president. Six facts justify a hopeful view of the future. The first is “ tolera- tion in religion, the best fruit of the last four centuries.” This is fundamental to liberty and promises to save us from frittering away our energies in needless bickerings. The second is our system of public schools, which provides us with a certain minimum of enlightenment. The third is the keen ethical sense of the people. The questions of the day that arouse most interest involve matters of right-and wrong. Our most successful politicians are great preachers. The fourth is the _ spirit of unity that pervades the land. Sectional feeling is at a low ebb. The east and the west, the north and the south, are more nearly one than ever before. The entire country acquiesces in the influence which the states that tried to secede in 1861 now exercise at Washington. Exhibitions of class feeling are, after all, exceptional. Commercial inter- course between different portions of the country makes strongly for community of interest. When one considers how frequently the bonds of affection within the family are strained to the point of breaking, the spirit of concord in the business world is little less than marvelous. The fifth is the success with which large corporations sift out compe- tent leaders. Big business occasionally acquires an element of monop- oly and menaces the state itself, but the management of its own affairs is commonly marked by a high degree of efficiency. Rivalry for promo- tion among capable men is especially keen in the large concern. 27 Robert Donald, ‘‘The Square Deal in England,’’ an authorized interview

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THE STRUGGLE FOR EQUALITY 67 Nepotism and other forms of favoritism now and then determine pre- ferment, but large enterprises have usually been-free from these influences. The sixth is the wholesome effect which comes from doing things in the open. The tendeney te insist upon publicity in corporate and public management is strong. Publicity exposes not only wickedness but also folly and bad judgment. It makes crime and political corruption more difficult and less attractive. The forger, burglar and corruptionist need secrecy, for two reasons: first, that they may succeed in their crimes; and secondly, that they may enjoy the fruits of their wickedness. The most callous sinner finds it hard to enjoy the product of his sin if he knows that everybody is aware how he came by it. No good cause ever suffered from publicity; no bad cause but instinctively avoids it.28 I am not unmindful of the perils which attend the period upon which we have entered. Some of them have been alluded to in the course of these pages. In addition I will mention the following. First, is the prevalence of a superficial habit of reading and thinking. Few college graduates, even, are capable of sustained thought. Many voters read nothing but a party newspaper. Second, is the difficulty which many voters experience in foreseeing the distant consequences of some kinds of political action. Third, is the vice of indifference and irre- sponsibility to which some voters are subject. In a large population, the amount of sovereignty that resides in the individual is so small that he is tempted to wonder if it makes any difference whether he votes or not. Fourth, is the temptation to assume that the majority is invari- ably right, or, at any rate, that it is irresistible and that it is not worth while to try to reverse it. Fifth, the press is interested in selling news and has a certain bias in favor of war. It is therefore tempted to pander to prejudice against foreigners and to foment international ill-feeling. The manufacturers of armor plate and other military sup- plies are subject to the same temptation. These and other perils, how- ever, seem to me for the most part as inevitable as the dangers which attend the young man who leaves home to go to college, or is set adrift in the world to shift for himself. Moreover, they are largely offset by the critical spirit which has taken the place of a blind obedience to authority and precedent among a large number of the population. As responsibility is the making of the man that is in the boy, so political institutions that depend upon the self-control, public spirit and wisdom of the masses tend to bring out the better side of human nature. One can not learn to swim without the perils which attend going into the water. Neither-can humanity acquire a larger measure of self-discipline _ with the aid of. democratic institutions without the risk of not making the best use of: its opportunities..~When the suffrage was enlarged in Great Britain in ‘1867, Robert Lowe ‘is said to have remarked: “We must now at least educate our new masters.” No words are more appropriate at the present juncture in human affairs. 28 Charles W. Eliot, op. cit., p. 55.

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REVELATIONS OF THE YOSEMITE VALLEY 69 GENESIS AND REVELATIONS OF THE YOSEMITE VALLEY By HAROLD FRENCH OAKLAND, CALIF. HE marvelous structure and sculpture of the Yosemite Valley kindles the imagination of every visitor to this great natural wonder and causes scientist and layman alike to evince the most intense interest in the origin of this mile-deep trough amid the granite waves of the High Sierra. Each pilgrim to this Mountain-Mecca endeavors to satisfy his mind as to the causes of its carving. Every one who wanders there wonders and guesses at its genesis; but the revelations of its geomorphogeny are far from being satisfactory or complete. Scientists have come and savants have gone, but few have agreed in their conclusions. The scenic grandeur of the Yosemite has sunk deep in the souls of poets and painters, artists and literateurs; and to the most practical of men, engineers and miners, do its unique features equally appeal. Awe-inspiring evidences of colossal dynamic agencies, such as the undermining and subsidence of vast areas, or the tremendous up- heaval of sky-piercing peaks and ridges, the quarrying and ground- sluicing of Brobdignagian blocks of granite, are all of deep significance and extreme interest to the mind of the miner. Over all this weird wonderland broods the spell of an enigmatic Sphinx. To this day, the Yosemite is, of a verity, the Valley of Mystery. GENERAL GEOLOGICAL FEATURES Before discussing the conflicting theories conjectured about the origin of the Yosemite Valley, it will be proper to present the salient features of its surroundings. ‘Trite, but essential to clearer under- standing, is the statement that the valley is approximately eight miles long and nearly a mile in extreme width and depth. Its floor averages 3,960 feet above sea level. At first glance, it will impress the miner as being a great open cut quarried through blocks of more or less resistant granite. And to many it will appear to be a great basin, the bottom of which had sunk to unfathomed depths. Whatever forces may have quarried this great open cut—if open cut it may be truly called—the accumulation of the tailings down stream from this titanic denudation is conspicuous by its absence. Therefore, the secret of the transportation of these billions of tons of tailings is one of the mysteries of the geological history of the Yosemite yet to be unfolded. Looking up the valley from its lower portal, two striking differences in the structure of its walls are seen in bold contrast to each other.

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY EL CAPITAN, 3,100 Ft. SHEER. Most striking illustration of massive, resistant granite. As massive monoliths of smooth, sand-papered granite, appear El Capitan, Sentinel Rock and Dome, Glacier Point and the Half and North Domes. These burnished, jutting promontories attract far more attention than do the hollowed-out recesses of the tributary canyons. And yet, it is more among the shadows of these deep-furrowed clefts that the geologist must look for. the most convincing evidences: of the actual sculpturing of the Yosemite Valley. The domes stand out more: as mighty monuments signalizing their resistance to erosion, rather than as facetted:- and modeled masses of rock. But between these promontories are zones of fissured strata-showing the shearing and

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REVELATIONS OF THE YOSEMITE VALLEY nt sawing of corrasive forces. The pinnacled Cathedral Spires and Rocks, the wrinkles of the Three Graces and the creases of Three Brothers most distinctly illustrate the differentiation of zones of more friable, granitic materigls. Beneath one’s feet is the remarkable floor of the valley, whose gradient is but little more than a foot of fall to the mile. Far above the rim of the main gorge of the Merced are dozens of “hanging valleys” cut off abruptly by the transverse trend of the precipitous walls of the Yosemite Basin. Above and beyond rise an ascending series of polished domes and U-shaped troughs culminating in the serrated crest of the High Sierra. Its eastern slope affords a most striking contrast to the gentler gradient towards the Pacific. The sunrise-fronting spurs of the Sierra plunge abruptly at a high angle down to the Mono plain seven thousand feet below. Alternating with steep escarpments, are deep-carved canons descending giant stair- cases, whose hollowed treads are frequently filled with azure lakelets. Beyond, over the drab desert, arise an array of dead “ fire-mountains,” recording an important chapter in the history of the High Sierra. According to Professor Joseph Le Conte, this mighty range was born out of the ocean during the Jurassic period, the strata bulging, mashing and crumpling as it yielded to horizontal pressure. Its first physical appearance in the poetic diction of John Muir was as “ one vast wave of stone in which a thousand mountains, domes, canons and ridges lay concealed.” Geologists agree that the original crest of the Snowy Range was in the vicinity of the Yosemite Valley, but, at the end of the Tertiary and the beginning of*the Quaternary periods, the Sierra block was tilted upward by volcanic. upheavals which burst forth all along its eastern border. The Sierras were pitched en masse in a steep slope toward the west, while a great fault system produced the precipitous escarpment towering above the desert. Consequently, the crest of the range was transferred to its eastern rim. Throughout the Quaternary period, a newer system of rivers, accelerated by the in- creased inclination of their watersheds, cut their beds deeper and deeper along the lines of least resistance. Then followed an “ over- deepening ” of these stream courses by corrasive forces of far greater potentiality than the agency of running water. EarLty HyporHeEseEs The fact that no concordance in the conjectures of geologists exists is probably due to their different earlier environment and experience. Some were more familiar with the phases of stream-erosion, others had studied the folding of sedimentary rocks, while certain savants were so carried away with their theory of glaciation that, in their imagination, they could only see the Sierras buried beneath a sea’ of ice a thousand fathoms deep. More who came to guess at its genesis, remained firm in their faith that “the bottom of the Yosemite dropped

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REVELATIONS OF THE YOSEMITE VALLEY 73 out.” The commonplace processes of work-a-day life psychologically bore their imprint in their deductions. Miners could only see gigantic excavations. The metallurgist would detect an apparent analogy in the swelling of these domes to the bubbling and solidification of molten metal. Engineers were most impressed by the evidences of stresses, strains and the rupture of weaker materials. One of the most ingenious interpretations of the subsidence theory was advanced most ingenuously by one of the gentler sex. To new- comers in the Yosemite I was explaining the “cataclysmic hypothesis,” still popular with those who prefer the more spectacular speculations. Suddenly, she exclaimed: “Did you ever bake a cake?” I answered proudly in the affirmative. “Well, did you ever spoil a cake?” Again, but with less pride, I admitted that such had been my experience. “Then you will know,” she continued, “how it is that heat and the gas formed by baking-powder make the batter rise. Up it swells. Then a crust forms. If all goes well, the cake becomes crisp and compact. But, if some one jars it, while it is rising, down it drops in the middle. And so I guess the Yosemite Valley must have dropped in just such a way.” This homely homology from an expert in culinary science was unanswerable. Her mind was made up. Even the most uncompromising glacialist could only have caused her to concede that the ice sheet was but a frosting spread over the surface of her hypothetical cake. During the summers of 1863-4, Professor Josiah Dwight Whitney, chief of the California Geological Survey, conducted a most thorough reconnoissance of the Yosemite and High Sierra region. In his first report, published in 1865, he advanced his theory that the Yosemite Valley had been formed by the subsidence of a limited area during the processes of upheaval of the Sierra.- This supposed sinking of its floor he attributed to the fracturing of its strata in a series of cross fractures and faults traversing each other, generally at right angles. The pioneer geologist declared that “this great cataclysm may have taken place at a time when the granitic mass was in a semiplastic condition below, although quite consolidated at the surface and for some distance down.” But Professor Whitney must not be misunderstood as maintaining that the gorge of the Yosemite is one gigantic fissure. Later, in 1870, in his celebrated ‘ Yosemite Guide-book,” he demonstrates that “the valley is too wide to have been formed by a fissure.” Had such been the case its opposite walls would have corresponded in most details, instead of differing as notably as they do. Rather did he regard its fracturing as having been the resultant of a chaotic complication of dislocations. Believing that its supports had been withdrawn during the convulsive movements of the plastic strata, he assumed in his homely phrase that “the bottom of the Yosemite dropped out.” When pressed for further evidence to support his theory, he could show no conclusive, concrete

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ee ee a ET Es aS Eo Pgs Pa ee ee et ene erie ga ito acon hid eee eee a ee ne aera — woe! renee rama sans : . 74 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY indications of such complex fissuring and faulting, but reasoned in rebuttal, that pressure from the mile high rock-masses above had so united yielding materials, subsequently transported by erosion, that all the traces of fracture had been lost. Professor Whitney was most positive in his idea that denudation had but little affected the formation of the walls of the valley or its domes. Had there been a considerable amount of erosion, its evidence would have been piled up in masses of débris along the course of the Merced River. “No ordinary denudation moulded the domes,” he declared. Instead, he insisted that the Sierran domes of granite were fashioned in a series of concentric layers while the igneous rocks were cooling. Associated with Professor Whitney was young Clarence King, who later won fame as the chief of the United States Geological Survey. King was the first to trace the courses of glaciers down into the Yose- mite Valley. He called attention to the beautifully-polished surfaces gleaming above the floor of the valley and pointed out four. distinct moraines, one between Half: Dome and Washington Column, a medial moraine between Tenaya Creek and the Merced River, a third, linger- ing in the gorge of the latter stream above the Happy Isles, while a fourth forms an imposing barrier below the narrows where the Cathe- dral Rocks approach El Capitan. Clarence King did not claim that ice filled the Yosemite Valley, but he declared its maximum depth to have been about 1,000 feet. | When John Muir first explored the Sierras, some forty-five years ago, he became imbued with the belief that the carving of the Yosemite had been effected almost entirely by ice. His earliest contributions to the literature of science and of the Sierras was a series of papers in’ which he endeavored to show how a vast sheet of ice, forty or fifty miles in width, cut across the crest of the range, quarrying for thousands of feet down through more friable formations; or enveloping and sweeping over the harder masses of granite, leaving striated and polished domes in the wake of the congealed flood. Muir attached great significance to the “hanging valleys,” cut off abruptly by precipices, two and three thousand feet sheer. To this glacialist, their only logical explanation was that a great plow of ice, shod with sharp abrasives, had furrowed the main valley below to untold depth. All the wealth of scenic wonders for which the Yosemite region is so famous, he contended had been chiseled by grindirig glaciers. Tracing the tributaries of the San Joaquin, Merced and Tuolumne Rivers to their fountains of per- petual snow, he discovered, during the seventies, no less than sixty- five surviving glaciers still busy at their lapidary labors. : Professor Whitney at first credited the discoveries of Clarence King, referring in his report of 1865 to the fact that “King and Gardner obtained ample evidence of the former existence of a glacier in the Yosemite Valley.” But, five years later he reversed his decision, de- TIWIHh DADITTAPRP QNIDAND WAANATY

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REVELATIONS OF THE YOSEMITE VALLEY NortTH DOME OF CONCENTRIC GRANITE FORMATION 3,600 Fret ABOVE MERCED RIVER. claring, that “there is no reason to suppose, or at least no proof, that glaciers have ever occupied the valley or any portion of it. . . . A more absurd theory was never advanced than!that by which it was sought to ascribe to glaciers the sawing out of these vertical walls and the round- ing of the domes.” At the same time, Professor Whitney was thor- oughly convinced that the Tuolumne watershed to the north had been entirely filled by a gigantic glacier which he agreed had hewn out the Hetch Hetchy Valley, a miniature Yosemite situated twenty miles northwesterly and three hundred feet lower in altitude. An able ally who came to the aid of Professor Whitney was the noted glacialist, Israel C. Russell. Detailed by the United States Geological _——. -_ oo i - & oe ils. oa te + ot. a... |. ee eee

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76 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY Survey to study the eastern slope of the High Sierra and particularly the basin of Mono Lake, he devoted several summers during the early eighties to extended observations of the adjacent region. Although he mapped the ramifications of a vast system of Quaternary glaciers, flowing down from the cirques of the Snowy Range, he adopted in toto the theory first advanced by Professor Whitney that dislocations of the cross-fractured granite, comprising the former bulk of the Yosemite Basin, had caused the orographic block to subside to an unknown depth, forming an appalling abyss. “Those who seek to account for the formation of the Yosemite,” Professor Russell wrote, “by glacial erosion should be required to point out the moraines deposited by the ice streams that are supposed to have done the work.” It is evident that he did not seriously consider the four reputed moraines on the floor of the valley which King first dis- covered. “The glaciers of this region,” he continued, “ were so recent that all the coarse débris resulting from their action yet remains in the position where it was left when the ice melted.” In reply to this rea- soning, John Muir insisted that sufficient time had elapsed since the recession of the glacier from the Yosemite to permit the disintegration of most of the detritus and its transportation to the lower levels by the Merced River. And Mr. Muir has strengthened his argument by demonstrating the rapidity with which aqueous and aerial agencies transform loose granite into sand. The extreme depth of the alluvium in the San Joaquin Valley far below is undeniable evidence of the - decomposition of thousands of cubic miles of igneous rock, crushed by’ the mills of the glaciers and conveyed by the ground-sluices of the streams. A general conclusion reached by Professor Russell was, in his words, that The main work of sculpturing the Sierra Nevada and the production of the variety of scenery for which these mountains are remarkable is to be attributed to water erosion; while only minor features, such as the rounding and broaden- ing of the bottom contours of valleys, the smoothing of the higher mountain slopes, the polishing and striation of rock surfaces are to be referred to glacial action. Still, the relative importance to be attached to each of the several agencies at work in this wonderland remains to be estimated accurately by the geological engineer. Le Conte AND LATER INVESTIGATORS Joseph Le Conte, the eminent geologist, author of the “ Elements of Geology,” a standard manual for two generations, was one of the first to survey the valley with the vision of an engineer. In his “ Ramblings in the High Sierra,” an account of his first visit to this region in 1870, appear his preliminary observations. His practical eye discerned the peculiar petrography of the walls of the Yosemite. “Already, I ob-

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REVELATIONS OF THE YOSEMITE VALLEY +5 by REE 4 ‘ + #8 EAE BRANES er i BRIDAL VEIL FALLg AND TYPICAL HANGING VALLEY. THH THREE GRACES IN THR BACKGROUND. serve,” he notes, “two very distinct kinds of structure in the granite of this region . . . which determine all the forms about this wonderful valley, . . . the concentric structure and a rude, columnar structure, or perpendicular cleavage.” By these differentiations he traced the sculp- ture of every ragged spire or rounded dome. Later, he confirmed his observations by demonstrating the effect of dynamic forces upon the separate formations, showing the processes of sculpturing, whether by quarrying along the least resistant lines of perpendicular fissuring, or the exfoliation of concentric layers of onion-like granite. Coming in close association with John Muir, he accepted his theories of glacial erosion. Following the ancient trough of the grand Tuolumne glacier, he traced its tangential branch which overflowed southward and poured

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78 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY its powerful volume down the deep-gashed gorge of Tenaya Creek into the Yosemite Valley.. Professor Le Conte estimated that the main Tuolumne glacier ranged in thickness from a thousand feet in the upper meadows of the modern stream to half a mile in the brimming basin of the Hetch Hetchy. Its length he measured as having been fully forty miles. In the upper canon of the main Merced, Le Conte and Muir studied the striations of grinding ice recorded on every outcrop- ping surface, particularly in the “hanging valley” of “Little Yosem- ite.” Together with the Tenaya glacier, the Merced River of ice mingled at the upper end of the Yosemite Valley, proper, to form a grand glacier which Le Conte believed was the most potent factor in the carv- ing of the U-shaped trough of the Yosemite. And, despite the doubts of Whitney and Russell, Le Conte pointed as prima facte proof the remaining medial moraine at the base of Half Dome near’ the junction of the two reputed rivers of ice. Several Geological Survey parties have been sent to solve the riddle of this Sphinx of the Sierras, but still no explanation of the origin of the Yosemite has won the general recognition of geologists or recon- ciled their differences of opinion. Mr. Francois E. Matthes, of the Survey, in his recent monograph, “The Origin of the Yosemite and Hetch Hetchy Valleys,” approaches the problem along the following un- biased lines of logical observation and deduction. Like Le Conte, he lays great stress upon the phases of erosion in the more fissured zones. He ac- cepts the general theory of the uptilting of the Sierra block during the late Tertiary period by volcanic levers, but gives little credence to the subsidence dictum of Whitney. As an ardent advocate of the glacial theory, he traces the apparent agency of ice in the evidence of over- deepened rock-basins and quarried canons like the steep gorge of Tenaya Creek. This striking instance is a graphic illustration of the excava- tion of a yielding mass of perpendicular cleavage set between walls of massive and adamantine granite. In brief, he argues that the Yosem- ite and Hetch Hetchy Valleys have been developed by an early system of rapidly-eroding streams; then “greatly deepened and enlarged by repeated ice invasions which modelled in the rough. The finer fash- ioned details of diversified sculpturing he attributes to more recent aqueous agencies and fracturing by frost and aerial forces. Far the most convincing evidence of the former glaciation of the Yosemite Valley he finds in the apparent scooping out of the rock-basin of the Yosemite to the depth of approximately 500 feet. This is confirmed, he contends, by the absence of sills of bed-rock, such as are usually seen outcropping among ordinary watercourses. Another important factor in the leveling of the floor of the valley he sees in the signs of several advances and recessions of terminal moraines across the bottom of this basin, in which process they were arranged in local ridges at frequent intervals. The most conspicuous terminal moraine is that which still

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WEATHERING OF CONCENTRIC LAYERS OF GRANITE DOMES. remains below the base of El Capitan, and which he believes dammed the downflowing waters and formed a lake six miles in length. Sub- sequently, sediments filled Lake Yosemite until they made the en- trancingly beautiful meadows of to-day. A continuation of this process is now beheld in the outgrowing delta of Tenaya Creek which gradually is encroaching upon Mirror Lake. Messrs. Matthes and Calkins of the Geological Survey have inti- mated to the writer that the forthcoming report of their latest recon- noissance will endeavor to prove that the Yosemite Valley was produced almost entirely by various forces of erosion as revealed by their inves- tigation of the influence of corrasive forces upon the fissured zones of granite. They are now looking for such concrete evidence. CoNCLUSIONS BASED ON CONCRETE Facts In this summary of the several theories of the genesis of the Yosemite, the general drift of their method of presentation has been to lead to a few conclusions based on concrete facts.. But, perhaps, the first and most logical conclusion is that the evidence is still far from being complete. Local geologists, however, have much faith that some new discoveries are about to be made public by the government inves- tigators. The absence of rock sills outcropping along the rim of the valley has been explained as being dde to their overburden of detritus. And yet there are reasons for believing that the solid bottom of the Yosemite did actually subside during the period of upheavals and dis- locations. The enigmatic formation of. the domes suggests the expan- sion of plastic masses of igneous‘ rocks. .If these waves of stone once swelled to such stupendous heights, there must have been intervening troughs. And so, the original sinking away of the valley floor along the lines of cross-fracture still is obvious to many competent observers.

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80 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY The present-day frequency with which great joint-blocks of granite give way in weathering, or from earthquake shocks, and fall to talus still suggest the subsidence hypothesis of Whitney. A compromise, composite theory may now be advanced. Considera- tion uf all the evidences of the structure and sculpture of the Yosemite region will justify the premise that during the upheaval of the molten granitic magma, domes swelled in rounded masses to much their present form, cooling in concentric layers, which were later exfoliated by aqueous and glacial denudation and aerial forces. Between these domes, the trough of the stone wave, faulted and cross-fractured along cleavage planes, formed the original floor of the Yosemite Valley. Subsequently, the tilting of the Sierra range caused the carving of the usual form of V-shaped valleys. Then, during the Quaternary period, down plowed the glaciers scooping out the bed-rock, sapping and scoring the walls of the valley, and leaving their moraines as mementoes to remind mankind of their ancient estate and power. But these moraines are either so wasted or considerable that much doubt is still entertained as to their extent. If erosive forces carved out the mile- deep Yosemite, the question of the transportation of the detritus is still to be raised. The comparatively lightly-covered bed of the Merced River below the valley does not indicate the accumulation of any immense amount of detritus. Only by extremely fine comminution of boulders to silt could this immense mass be almost completely carried away. There is every evidence that a glacier reached the floor of the Yosemite Valley, but the extent of its quarrying is still unknown. Whether by direct grooving, or by undermining the overhanging escarp- ments, it unmistakably transformed the canyon’s V into a broad, chen Section of Nonna Valle Betweerr North Dome and Glacier Point NE gg ——— Sw. | bs ° ~ 7 . ' Canon of \ Base oo win “ot

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REVELATIONS OF THE YOSEMITE VALLEY 81 U-shaped valley. As the glacier receded, torrential streams cut into the glacial moraines, changing the vicinity of the upper reaches of the Merced into more angular surfaces, with the ultimate purpose of eliminating U and substituting V. After all the theories have been advanced, their truth or fallacy will remain a matter of conjecture until the underlying facts are brought to light. Buried far below the flowery meadows and boulder overburden lies the unseen, pristine bed rock. Graven on tablets of stone in indelible characters is the key to the cryptic cipher of this Sierran Sphinx. The mining geologist is more practical than academic. He would prospect the floor of the valley to unearth that hidden key. Therefore, he would advise the sinking of shafts down through the sediments, ascertaining their character and striking the sunken sill. Following the rim of the latter for a short distance, the miner-geologist would soon determine in finality the genesis of the Yosemite Valley. If this deep basin was once shattered by a cataclysm, causing the fall- ing away of an almost bottomless abyss, the zones of its marginal fracturing could be definitely discovered. Or, if overdeepening of the bed rock by the abrasive-shod plow of a glacier be the true cause of its carving, the striated strata and the morainal drift will tell the tale. Stream-erosion will also be revealed to its exact extent. Therefore, it would seem that no appropriation for the researches of the Geological Survey in this region can be expended to better advantage than by prospecting in miner-like fashion for the hidden truth of the making of this great natural wonder. That this practical idea meets with the approval of the Geological Survey party is shown by a recent expression by Mr. Francois E. Matthes in the Sierra Club Bulletin. “It is to be hoped that some day such borings may be undertaken; they would not merely serve to solve a problem of great local interest, but would con- tribute much-desired data regarding the still-challenged eroding effi- ciency of glaciers.” THE YOSEMITE AT THE EXPOSITION One of the most interesting features of the federal government’s par- ticipation at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition will be the presentation of a large relief model of the Yosemite National Park. Cartographers of the United States Geological Survey are putting the finishing touches on this miniature of the Yosemite Valley and its sur- roundings. They will show its stupendous steeps and glaciated basins as vividly as though viewed from an aeroplane. Every visitor to the Exposition who may be interested in geological science will find this replica replete with fascinating details carefully set forth. Buffalonians laid special stress upon the nearness of Niagara Falls to the Pan-American Exposition. Likewise, Californians take great VOL, LXxxv.—6.

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82 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY pride in their unique wonderland, the Yosemite National Park. It can now be reached by train and auto stage in a dozen hours from the Ex- position City. The Department of the Interior is spending large sums in putting this great public playground in order for the enjoyment of probably 100,000 visitors who will view its glories in 1915. Few there are who have not dreamed of making a pilgrimage to Nature’s most awe- inspiring shrine at least once in their lives. Tourists to the Exposition at San Francisco will have the double opportunity of seeing all of its varied attractions and at the same time include the Yosemite in their itineraries. With notably reduced rates to the Pacific Coast through- out 1915, they will have the chance of a life time to see the Yosemite and other scenic wonders of the west under the best possible traveling and tarrying conditions. The riddle of this Sphinx of the Sierras is still far from being solved; therefore, geologists will find an unlimited field for special investigations and study following in the footsteps of John Muir and Joseph Le Conte.

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THE AMERICAN WHALING INDUSTRY GRAPHICS OF THE AMERICAN WHALING INDUSTRY By Dr. J. ARTHUR HARRIS CARNEGID INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON | ape in connection with another piece of work, I found it desirable to express graphically various phases and factors of the rise and decline of American whaling. In these graphs nothing is added to the facts recorded by Scammon, Starbuck, Goode, Tower and others who have investigated and written on the economic phases of the problem, and from whose tables the vari- ous diagrams have been compiled. But the graphical treatment seems to bring out so forcefully some of the points of greatest biological and economic interest concerning the remarkable development and decline of the once great and now insignificant industry that I have ventured to offer them for publication, with a few explanatory remarks. In Fig. 1 the abscisse are years from 1805 to 1905, while the ordi- nates are marked off by the total tonnage’ of the whaling fleet. Here are clearly shown (a) the vascillations in size of fleet during the first few years of trial and establishment of the industry, (b) the depression associated with the war of 1812, (c) the phenomenal growth of a quarter of a century made possible by the unrestrained exploitation of ocean-wide resources up to the maximum point where there were over seven hundred vessels aggregating over two hundred and thirty thousand tons and valued at over twenty-one millions, (d) the temporary fluctua- tions when the industry had reached its crest, (e) the precipitous fall due to the depletion of the resources of the seas, to the risks and losses of the great war, and to other causes, and finally the decline which fol- lowed more slowly with the restoration of safety, but inevitably as almost every product of the whale except the bone was nen by those de- rived from petroleum. The curve is remarkable for its regularity and for its similarity to a biological variation polygon—to the normal or “ Quetelet’s” curve. Indeed, the factors to which the form of the curve is due are in large part biological, although economic and social forces are also patent. Some of the minor irregularities are doubtless due to the unavoidable inaccuracies in the data. Apparently, the depression in 1850 and 751 is a real one; the revival of the industry resulting in the second mode 1 Number of sail which in 1846 reached 736 would be interesting for com- parison, but the data are not available for so wide a range of years.

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84 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY on 1854 is probably due to the opening up of the bowhead whaling of the Okhotsk Sea, possibly by Captain Freeman Smith, of the ship Huntsville of the Cold Spring Harbor fleet, and of true arctic whaling by Roy’s voyage through Behring strait in the bark Superior (275 tons), of Sag Harbor, L. I., in 1848. In diagrams 2-4 the products of this fleet are represented for the various years. Here barrels of whale oil and of sperm oil and pounds of — a "1810 .%,° 1820 ae 1830 % 1840 >) 1850 . 1860 + 1870 ,-. 1880 1890 1900 | DiaGRaM 1, ToraL TONNAGE OF AMERICAN WHALING FLEpt, 1805-1905. One unit on the vertical scale denotes 10,000 tons. bone are marked off on the vertical scale for each year. In general form the curves for all three products resemble that for tonnage. There are, however, certain distinct and conspicuous differences. First among these, one notes the great variations from year to year in the quantity of products brought in—fluctuations which show the great uncertainty which surrounded the industry. This is most con- -spicuous for whale oil: it is almost equally marked in the case of whale

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THE AMERICAN WHALING INDUSTRY 85 bone after the latter came to be of considerable commercial importance ; for sperm oil too it is unmistakable. The most remarkable drop is that for whale oil and whale bone in 1852. Doubtless, this is in part due to unfavorable years, but it is prob- ably also an after-effect of the reduction of the fleet seen in 1850 and 1851—a reduction the effects of which would not be seen until at least a year or two later, when the vessels would be returning with their cargoes. ~s a bh 5 ? d | ~ i c T u mia t T T T 1810 © 1820 - 1830 1840 @ 1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 a 1900 | DiackaAM 2. WHALB OIL, BROUGHT IN BY AMBRICAN Fixer. Unit for ordinates = 20,000 barrels. That the depression does not affect the sperm-oil curve is perhaps due to the fact that the sperm whales might be taken at any part of the voyage —not merely on closely circumscribed “grounds” during a limited “ season.” The curves for whale oil and sperm oil differ in certain important points. Except on the “tails” of the curves the imports of the more valuable sperm oil are far in defect of those for whale oil. Probably in consequence of the greater demand the source was earlier exhausted. The mode of the sperm-oil curve lies, in consequence, nearer the incep- tion of the industry, and the curve is therefore far more skew. It is in- teresting to note that in more recent years, the imports of sperm oil have been maintained at a relatively higher point than has that of whale oil. It is quite outside my present purpose to discuss the reasons for this. For many years, bone was of very little commercial importance. The entries for bone lie close to the base line up until about 1830, after which the imports are on a rising curve until the decade 1845-1855, after which _

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86 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY it steadily declined notwithstanding a phenomenal increase in prices— an increase amounting to somewhere between five thousand and ten thou- sand per cent. during the course of the century! Curves for the prices of oils need not be added. They of course show the sperm oil constantly higher than whale oil, with both showing con- siderable vacillations for about the first half century of the period here | Ith | | ' i ‘ ot tT T t T T T T 1810 © 1820 +1 By 1840 x! 1850 (3 1860 * 1870 1880 Oe 1890 & 1900 | Drackam 8. SPERM O1L BroucHut BACK By AMERICAN Fipet. Scale for ordinates the same as in the case of whale oil. wb 1 \ neem arm eee eng mown oe, — T t t 1810 1820 1830 1840 ©) 1850 1860 1870 1880 #1 1890 1900 | D1aGRAM 4, PRODUCTION OF WHALE Bone. Unit of scale = 500,000 pounds. under consideration. At the time of the Civil War, with the whaling fleet rapidly decreasing and many of the vessels still in the service lying idle, the prices mounted high; but this was also the time of the establishment of the petroleum industry, by the development of which the fate of whaling was sealed. The prices gradually fell until in spite of the scarcity of the products they reached almost the level of those that prevailed when the industry was at its height. CoLp Spring Harsor, L. I., January 20, 1914

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_ HABIT OF HAVING LAW MAKERS AND LAWYERS 87 THE BAD HABIT OF HAVING LAW MAKERS AND LAWYERS By JOHN COTTON DANA NEWARE, N. J. N the process of social development early societies invented certain customs and institutions to satisfy certain more or less well-defined needs. That is to say, all customs and institutions have had their origins, in part, in sheer utility. All of them were therefore good; for they all helped, if they did nothing more, to establish and maintain that social stability which is a prime essential to progress. It is probable that we owe our present advanced position to cannibalism in precisely the same sense, though not necessarily in the same degree, in which we owe it to slavery, to polygamy, to autocracy, to monogamy and to property in land. At certain points in society’s advance one and all of these customs were demanded by circumstances, were developed and gave hu- manity an uplift. These several customs were adopted by social groups of a relatively low order. They were beaten out, as it were, by pressure of adverse cir- cumstances, under the guidance of the barbarous and the semi-civilized. Crude as are many of our methods of so modifying our own customs as to meet wisely the changing conditions of our social life, the methods used in early days were very much cruder. The results were unsatisfac- tory. Cannibalism was doubtless a helpful custom in its day; but was not good for all time and in due course was abandoned. Slavery was more useful and for a longer period. It even helped bring to full flower a very refined civilization. But it demonstrated its own ill effects and was duly abandoned. It is obvious that in all customs established in the early days of primi- tive society there are defects. Having been devised in a society of the socially unskilled they must all partake of a certain coarseness and crudity, and they must have fitted but ill the needs for which they were devised. If one of them by rare chance proved perfectly adapted to its purpose in the society for which and by which it was fashioned, it could not possibly fit the far more advanced and far more complex society into which the crude society gradually developed. Now the law, meaning the power behind the law; and the law, mean- ing both rules given by legislators and judges and legislators and judges themselves ; and the law, meaning the technique of its alignment as prac- tised by a privileged class, the lawyers—the law in all these three forms or aspects, is a social eject of extreme antiquity. It is one of those

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We ae 88 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY ancient folkways, whose ancestry bespeaks its imperfections and whose close kinship to other folkways, long since found injurious and sloughed off, prophesies for it a like fate. It is an ancient and imperfect tool, re- tained thus far partly because it is still of some use in our still very im- perfect society, and partly because its harmfulness is not yet fully recognized. It never fitted perfectly the purpose which it is supposed to serve. It fits less well each succeeding generation and works upon each more and more harm. If it is said that the law in its three-fold form differs from all other institutions in that it underlies them all; that the sum of all habits is the very law itself, this answer is offered : We speak of the bad habit of polygamy, of the bad habit of cannibal- ism, of the bad habit of having slaves; and we speak in the same way, and with as little thought of law, of the bad habit of having absolute monarchs. Now, the absolute monarch is the source of all law. In theory, he states it, aligns it and enforces it. Yet we conceive readily of the habit of having an absolute monarch as a bad habit, to be in due course given up. It is precisely upon this thought of the law as a bad habit that this argument for its harmfulness is based. It was essential in a certain stage of social development that one man should rule a tribe, just as it was essential that the same tribe should eat its neighbors. It was essen- tial that a few men—kings, nobles or what not—should rule a nation, just as it was essential that that nation should make slaves of its neigh- bors. It was, and in a sense still is, essential that the majority of a na- tion should rule the minority; just as it was, and in a sense still is, essential that the same nation wage perpetual commercial warfare with its neighbors. Now the king, the aristocracy and the majority are each and all of the essence of the law; the cannibalism, the slavery and the commercial warfare are not. Formal statements of the existence of the latter insti- tutions, if such were made, might be called laws; and kings, aristocracy or majority may be said to have enforced them. But the difference between them and the first three is that they are not thought of as touched with legality, with the majesty of law-givers and courts. They may be thought of directly as evil customs working harm to those who practised them. And just as we may think of having cannibalism or slavery as bad habits, so may we think of having a king or an aristocracy or a ruling majority as bad habits. The first aspect, then of the law as I defined it—kingship, rule of man by man—is itself a habit and not an aggregate of all habits. It was born to fill a certain need, and was therefore good ; but it was born of the ignorant and socially inept, and is therefore bad. Like other ancient devices, it is outliving its usefulness. Our native conservatism holds it fast long after its evil results have begun to outweigh its good results.

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HABIT OF HAVING LAW MAKERS AND LAWYERS 89 As to the laws themselves, being the second aspect of the law as defined, that these are full of harm is universally admitted. Ten thou- sand new ones are yearly made; and straightway ten thousand more are made to modify and ameliorate the first ten thousand. We confess by their constant revision and repeal that we find the law-making habit per- sistently injurious. As to the law-makers themselves, they are, like kingship and canni- balism, survivals of an ancient device. The primitive tribe which con- quered had learned to obey, else it had not conquered; obedience meant conformity to rules; the rules were set down by others, not by those who obeyed them. The habit of having rules which others made had its ad- vantages. Naturally we have held fast to the habit. And now, though better equipped than ever before by virtue of our racial experience, our individual training and our inherited tendencies, to guide ourselves wisely, we hug to ourselves too closely still the bad habit of having law makers. We are to-day strengthening the habit’s hold upon us instead of weakening it. That our lawmakers can not be otherwise than blunderingly if not maliciously harmful seems a foregone conclusion, if we consider, not their origin, but merely the manner of their selection. We do not pick them for proven skill in guidance, for experience gained as leaders in great social enterprises, or for their mastery of the problems of modern society—not at all. We do not even invoke in their selection the alea- tory gods and submit our legislative fortunes to the unprejudiced deci- sions of a hatful of black and white beans. We do not select them with the aid of signs and omens such as are granted by the flight of birds or the entrails of hens. The last two methods would have some of the advantages of chance, for they would, if honestly conducted by a gov- ernment priesthood, occasionally point to a man peculiarly well fitted for the task of law making. But while the choice of our law makers is not determined by sacri- ficial inspection, it is accompanied by ceremonies and incantations of a quasi-religious nature; and it turns often on the relative persistence of the several candidates in the repetition of certain formule and the honor- ing of certain taboos. The law-maker group, like the group of privileged specialists in the technique of the law’s action, the lawyers, derives itself from the king as high priest, and its work, as maker of laws, has a strong ecclesiastical and even a religious flavor. This is almost more true of the judge as law giver than it is of the legislator proper. The judge seems the more direct of the two in his descent from the god-given king. About his position and his utterances there is a special odor of sanctity. While both are in large degree taboo, the greater relative sanctity of the judge is illustrated by the fact that one may quite openly condemn a legislator, or even a legislative body as a whole, and be not

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go THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY greatly criticized therefor; whereas openly to condemn a judge, qua judge, shocks certain of our quasi-religious sensibilities. This very ancient and now quite harmful habit of ascribing a certain sanctity to law makers means that we tend to look upon them with a cer- tain religious reverence and submission. In further accordance with this habit we select our law makers primarily or largely for their adher- ence to a creed and for their activity in securing converts to that creed. The intrusion of those elements of religious enthusiasm, which make for the destruction of all judicious decision, into the work of selecting our law makers is alone sufficient reason for the conclusion that they must do us much harm. The habit of having, in the alignment of the rules the king or the majority enforce an elaborate technique, practised by a privileged class, the lawyers, has a peculiar harmfulness. The habit of having kings, or law-enforcers in any form, and the habit of having legislators or other kinds of law makers, are both survi- vals and both are doing injury through their failure to fit the more civil- ized communities which still retain them. But both were once quite essential to progress, and seem still to possess advantageous features, even to societies as advanced as our own. The tribal chief and abject obedience to him were once quite important factors in the struggle for tribal survival. In later forms of society it was as important that the elders of the tribe lay down rules adapted to changing conditions as it was that the grand chief enforce them. That is, the habit of having laws made, and the habit of obeying the one who was there to enforce them, were once quite markedly helpful habits and have some excuse for sur- vival even down to our own day. But for the habit of having a privi- leged class in charge, as it were, of the technique of the distribution of the effects of the law, of this not so much can be said. The origin of the lawyer-having habit at once discloses to us a suffi- cient reason for the power and persistence of the custom of making him a privileged member of society, and points also to its harmfulness. The tribal chief of early days took on, from his earliest appearance, certain ecclesiastical trappings and powers. He was often a god him- self, either during his life or immediately after his death. He was often chief priest as well as head man. The priestly class which grew up about him performed the accustomed sacerdotal rites, led the people through the mummeries of the tribal religion, took on much of the sanctity which custom gave to the head man himself, and, inevitably, became a special- ized class with peculiar powers, immunities and dignities. The fact of the descent of the lawyer class from this priestly class is familiar enough. The lawyer’s special privileges have descended directly from those enjoyed by medicine men and priests who surrounded the tribal leader and helped him to exercise his more god-like functions and

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HABIT OF HAVING LAW MAKERS AND LAWYERS gI shared his god-like prestige. The habit of having a privileged priestly class was never as distinctly helpful to the tribe as were the king habit and the rules-of-conduct habit, and it was also, from the very nature of its origin, inevitably touched with a power for harm which just as inevitably increased as the social organism developed, expanded and be- came more sophisticated. In so far, therefore, as the lawyer caste of to- day takes its peculiar and exclusive powers from its direct precursor, the priestly caste, so far is it predestined to harmfulness. And in so far, again, as it takes its special powers by direct inherit- ance from a quasi-ecclesiastical source, so far is the habit of tacitly grant- ing those powers guarded with a quasi-religious zeal by those, the ignorant populace, who hold it. The divinity that was once of the very essence of the tribal chief, hedges still the kingly majority of the present social hierarchy and that majority’s priest-born, privileged law exploit- ers. The creed of the devout believer in the efficacy of the law in all the aspects of it I have named—the law enforcer, the law maker and the law exploiter—this creed includes by implication, if not in so many words, an article declaring the divine origin of the power of those who give, those who enforce and those who align the law. Inevitably,.in view of its origin and character, the lawyer class forms the most powerful and self-assertive of labor unions. It is the most powerful, for it has behind it the authority of both the law-enforcing and the law-formulating powers. Indeed, it is itself, as already shown, the third in the trinity of powers which constitute to-day the whole of that habit-of-having-the-law which was once the habit-of-having-an-autocrat. A labor union, possessed of some of a ruler’s supreme authority, of neces- sity becomes, in accordance with well-known laws of human nature, arrogant, overbearing and prone to serve its own personal ends at some sacrifice of the ends for which it was constituted. For an example, one may cite that habit of procrastination in which the caste still indulges in the exercise of its functions, a habit the painful effects of which an elaborate ritual and an esoteric terminology tend somewhat to mystify but not at all to mitigate. Gaining its authority and its sanctity largely from a remote past, being desirous of retaining both, and feeling that both are accentuated by constant reference to their ancient and noble lineage, the lawyer caste draws constantly for its pronouncements not on the merits of the case in hand, but on the whole body of ancient doctrine. Herein this caste resembles its foster sister, the ecclesiastical group; but while the latter is moved constantly to look forward, if not by the good sense of its units, then at least by the pressure of internal competition, the former is sup- ported in its enjoyment of reminiscence and its scorn of evolution by the whole law-having habit of which it is a part. In one aspect of the special powers of the lawyer class we find an

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92 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY astonishing survival of a rather special ancient custom. The tribal chieftain surrounded himself with satellites, priests, kin-folk and cour- tiers. He was compelled to delegate to these the exercise of some of his functions. It suited their needs to make it difficult for the common people to approach him and present their petitions and their grievances. In time it became the custom for the wealthier and more influential of those who would get word with the chief, or would, through his immedi- ate friends, gain favor from him of a promise, a gift or a decree, to pur- chase, outright or indirectly, the help of an intermediary. This custom was handed down, became fixed in its details, and survives to-day in the lawyer’s fee. Now as in the early days of this custom, a person specially authorized for the purpose stands between the faithful and the law- enforcing power. One may almost say that we license the door-keepers of the halls of justice and permit them to take toll of all who enter. The chief direct beneficiaries of the survival of this law-having-habit are the lawyers. As such, one can not hope to find them zealous in modi- fying or weakening the habit. But lawyers are as ready as is any other special class to declare their devotion to the general welfare, and they are better situated and better fitted than is any other class to check the growth of this injurious law-having custom. And nearly all lawyers admit, when the question is of law-making by legislatures, that the law- habit is most harmful, and that it constantly grows stronger. Ten thousand generations taught our race to love a king; we seem unable to get over the habit. We love him; we believe in him; we think he can make us prosperous, wise and happy; and when he comes to us in the guise of a legislative majority from our own political party our faith enjoys a veritable renaissance. There was a time, say 50 or 80 years ago, when the law-having habit, among English speaking peoples at least, seemed on the decline. Then a change came, merely, one may dare hope, the inevitable temporary re- action we must always look for in such cases, and to-day we are again in the full tide of law building. Now, are lawyers as a class attempting to check the growth of this law worshiping habit? Do they point out again and again to the populace that it is, after all, but the habit of worshiping a divinely appointed king under another nomenclature and another set of cere- monials ? In the layman’s observation, they do not. They profit by the '‘law’s growing complexity. They hasten to become legislators themselves if only to equip themselves in the way of profitable legalizing. But is there not here an opportunity for this social group, harmful in its very essence, to lessen to some degree the harm its existence causes, by attacking in an organized way this hurtful habit of worshiping the law?

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HOW WE DEFEND OURSELVES FROM OUR FOES 93 HOW WE DEFEND OURSELVES FROM OUR FOES By Proressor FRASER HARRIS, D.Sc. DALHOUSIE UNIVERSITY, HALIFAX, N. 8. N a certain sense even now in the midst of his civilized communities, mankind is waging ceaseless warfare against a number of hostile conditions, both animate and inanimate. Serious as this may be now, it must have been much more acute in the earlier times of the race. Man had to defend himself, as best he could, from the great cosmic exhibitions of energy—the extremes of heat and cold, the tempest, the lightning, the avalanche, the earthquake and the tidal wave. Primitive man, we are assured, must have lived in the midst of alarms of all sorts and in the constant dread of attacks by fierce animals far more powerful than himself. Undoubtedly he sought shelter from wind, rain, snow and frost in those caverns in which his skeleton and the bones of the animals he slew for food and fur are yet to be found. In many parts of the world he built his wooden hut on piles out from the shore of some lake, so that he had his food supply in the fish under the floor, and was also more secure against the wild animals when his dwelling had to be defended on one side instead of on four. The latent powers of his nervous system permitted him to develop that speed of running in flight whereby he saved himself from the avalanche, the tidal wave or the beasts of the field. Not alone was speed necessary, but also rapidity of response on the part of his nervous system in order to take warning from the impending danger: that man lived longest who most rapidly reacted to the danger signal, stepped most agilely out of the way of the rolling boulder, skipped most briskly aside from the infuriated lion or bear. Of course, as we know, he early devised his weapons of offence and fired his flint-tipped arrows at the animals threatening his life or destined to be his store of food for a long time to come. That man throve best who most accurately threw his stone or javelin, so that quickness of response (short “reaction-time”) and accuracy of aim— both powers of the nervous system—were early in the history of our tace the means of escape from enemies, or the mode of procuring a sufficiency of food. The first human line of defence is then nervous or mental; our ancestors established themselves on the earth by means of such powers of the nervous system as speed, accuracy and coordination of move- —————

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94 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY ments; and these are of supreme importance even yet. He who jumps quickest out of the way of the runaway horse escapes with his life; the old gentleman, whose reaction-time age has lengthened, does not step aside from the carelessly driven motor-car sufficiently perfectly, and so gets run over. Those men who after harpooning the whale got their boat most quickly out of the reach of his tail, were most likely to reach the big ship in safety. He burns his fingers least who most rapidly drops the hot coal. While, now-a-days, shortness of reaction-time may only occasionally contribute to the actual saving of life, yet it does assuredly contribute towards what is called “success” in life. He who most quickly grasps a situation of danger and acts accordingly, has an advantage over his neighbor with the more sluggishly reacting nervous system. It is obviously by his development of intelligence—a power of the nervous system—that man has not only conquered nature, animate and inaminate, but has learned to use its forces, even the most hostile, in the interests of his own comfort and prosperity. Our first line of defence is, then, mental; and the elements of time and precision are all important. We have, however, to reckon with foes far more subtle and more often met with than the thunder-bolt, the lion, the bear or the electric eel. In some parts of the world, the living things that can poison us are very numerous—venomous snakes, scorpions, countless insects, all ready to pour their poison and acids into our skins. Mankind has learned that alkali will neutralize their acid, and has in these latter days discovered how to manufacture an antivenin to counteract the venin or venom of the serpents. We fight chemical injuries by chemical means. But all these sources of danger or injury are insignificant compared with those which are absolutely and forever beyond the ken of our senses. In common with all other living things, we are surrounded by parasites and preyed upon by them continually. It seems a law of animate naturé that any given living thing, vegetable or animal, should have its particular parasite or parasites. For even the vegetables have parasites: the potato has the potato-blight, a fungus; the vine has its phylloxera, another fungus, and so on. The lower plants prey on the higher, the higher on the highest. Fungi and moulds are parasites on both plants and animals. Animals are parasitic on plants: grubs eat the roots and the buds of flowers, the aphides destroy the roses, the Colorado beetle devours the potato. The gooseberry moth strips the leaves off the goose- berry plant; the oak has its galls, everything its blemishes. To such an extent is all this recognized now-a-days that a department of botany, economic vegetable parasitology, has arisen within the last few years. Expert botanists are studying the conditions under which these pests

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HOW WE DEFEND OURSELVES FROM OUR FOES 95 appear and therefore how we may either guard our flowers and food- ' vegetables from their ravages, or remove the parasites when once they have settled on their victims. The loss to farmers, fruit-growers and horticulturists each year through parasites is enormous. Fungi and moulds are parastitic on animals as well as on vegetables ; the salmon has the fungoid salmon disease, the grouse has the bacterial grouse disease, the barn-door fowl has its cholera, the swine have swine-fever, the cattle have anthrax and Rinderpest, horses “ glanders” and so on. Then animal parasites infest animals; the frog’s lung harbors cer- tain lowly creatures known as Gregarinide; dogs, cats, pigs, horses, all have their intestinal parasites, from which obnoxious worms man himself is by no means exempt. Host and unbidden guest, victim and parasite—this inter-relation- ship runs through the whole of living nature; it is not the exception, it is the rule. Nature has indeed provided for it; the intestinal worms of the horse have actually developed an anti-ferment which prevents their being digested by the digestive ferments of the horse’s intestine. Attack and defence, action and reaction unceasingly, this is nature’s method; there is no rest; and there is no splendid isolation; we must be attacked and preyed upon and resist—forever ! A few plants and animals have taken refuge in “ protective mim- icry”; the dead-nettle imitates its stinging neighbor, and so is avoided by such animals as avoid the latter; some insects imitate dead leaves, twigs, etc., and so are not devoured by insect-eating birds. But the majority of the foes that man has to battle with are far more subtle than intestinal worms or mosquitoes, or even fungi; for there are myriads of bacteria so light that they float in air even when dust settles; so small that millions can inhabit a drop of water; so numerous that arithmetic is powerless in designating them; so power- ful that they have emptied cities, decimated armies and devasted con- tinents. The mortality of the great Boer War had been a trifling thing if the English had had only to reckon with the Mauser bullets; far more deadly the typhoid bacilli than all the guns of all the Dutchmen and their allies. It is now common knowledge that nine out of ten diseases have an actual, physical recognizable source or cause in some particular parasitic bacillus (rod-like form) or coccus (round form). Undoubtedly some diseases are due to microscopic animal forms, such as ague (malaria), yellow fever, dysentery, the sleeping sickness; but the vast majority are due to vegetable parasites of microscopic size. All those serious dis- eases known as diphtheria, typhoid fever, cholera, plague, tuberculosis, pneumonia, influenza, rheumatism, common cold, and infantile paraly- sis, have been shown to be due to the living body being invaded by countless numbers of infinitely minute rod-like or ball-like microbes.

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96 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY Of course all bacteria are not disease-bringing (pathogenic) ; and it is well for us that it is so, for the air, earth and water teem with bacteria of some sort. Many are quite harmless and are occupied only with getting rid of dead bodies by putrefactive fermentation. But our present concern is with our invisible foes, and we must now try to find out how our bodies protect themselves against their presence and their poisonings. We have three chief methods whereby we defend ourselves from our invisible foes, namely, the physical, the vital or protoplasmic and the chemical. We possess as an outermost line of defence the intact skin and mucous membranes, the horny layer (keratin) of the skin and the mucus-covered layer on the internal surfaces being impenetrable by micro-organisms. The living colony—the entire animal—is surrounded by armor, the body is armor-plated, the keratin of the skin is the armor-plating. Once a rift occurs in the armor, a crack, a split, a crevice, an abrasion, a cut or a puncture, it matters not which, then the entrance of our foes is a possibility, nay, a probability. These rifts need not, of course, be perceptible to the naked eye, they may be barely discernible under the microscope, but they are large enough to admit bacilli, and that is all that is needed; diminished resistance within the citadel ensures its conquest. The outer surface of the teeth, the enamel, the hardest tissue known, is indeed not able to be directly attacked by bacteria, but they force an entrance just underneath it and undermine it so that it is easily broken in. Another physical means of defence is wetness; the wet mucous membranes of nose, throat and lungs retain the dust and bacteria which stick to them. Bacteria wetted are bacteria imprisoned ; it is only when dry that they can be wafted about on their disease-bringing errands. But the mucous membranes of the nose, throat and lungs are cov- ered with cilia. When we mention cilia, we pass to the second or vital means of defence. Cilia are whip-like prolongations of the cells lining the breathing passages, and they are continually lashing the mucus in which they are immersed with its dust towards the mouth and nostrils. In this way the bacteria caught in the mucus are removed from the body, and thus it is that mucus containing disease-germs should be burned and not allowed to dry, and so set free its burden of bacteria. In prolonged bronchitis, these cilia are known to be absent from the bronchial mucous membrane, thus depriving it of a valuable mode of defending itself from microorganic invasion. The chief vital agents concerned in fighting our invisible foes are the white cells or leucocytes of the blood. These minute living things

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HOW WE DEFEND OURSELVES FROM OUR FOES 97 are apparently exceedingly sensitive to the presence or secretions of microorganisms, for they come out of the blood capillaries shortly after the bacteria have invaded. the neighboring tissues. Their mode of attack is frontal; they literally fall upon the intruders and, swallowing them bodily, digest them, so rendering them powerless for any further activity. If the bacteria do not prove very poisonous, the phagocytes are not killed ; if however, the poison (toxin) of the bacteria is a virulent one, the leucocytes are killed and their dead bodies constitute “pus,” as surgeons call it, or “matter” as other people call it. In suitable prep- arations for the microscope it.is possible to see large numbers of mi- crobes in a semi-dissolved state inside the white cells. One kind of leucocyte paralyzes or kills the microbes without en- gulfing them. Of course leucocytes will do their work well or ill according as they are themselves in good or bad health, vigorous or enfeebled. All ex- hilarating conditions tend to invigorate the leucocytes, all depressing conditions to enfeeble them. The leucocytes are, then, the second line of defence—the rank and file of the defending army. When once the outermost physical barriers have been penetrated by the enemy, these living agents take up the defence by active, offensive measures. The third mode of defence which we possess is the power of our body-cells to manufacture certain chemical substances having the property of neutralizing the poisons of the bacteria which have invaded us. All the body-cells cooperate more or less vigorously in this the most subtle method of dealing with the soluble toxins manufactured by the bacteria now multiplying in the blood and body-fluids of the unwilling host. These soluble toxins affect, stimulate, the tissues of the victim, which, being living cells, react, and the expression of their reaction is the outpouring of a chemical something, appropriately called an anti- toxin which, uniting with the bacterial toxin, neutralizes it and pre- vents it exercising its injurious powers. The infected organism thus works out its own chemical salvation by a vital, but no less chemical, response to the poison of the infection. To do this efficiently is to recover, to fail to do so is to remain infected, to be injured chemically, possibly to die. This production of antitoxin on the part of the infected body is a vital, protective mechanism of a chemical order; it is the chemical reply to a chemical insult. If the attacked body-cells can provide sufficient of this antitoxin to neutralize.all the toxin made by the bacteria, the individual will not merely get well, but will remain im- mune from that particular infection for a long time, because, when once VOL, LXXXV.—7.

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 98 the body-cells begin making antitoxin they make a great deal more than is needed to neutralize all the toxin which the invaders have manufactured. Hence it is that a person who has successfully come through some infectious disease, smallpox or scarlatina, for instance, can not, for some time thereafter, be reinfected with the poison of that disease; his blood contains an excess of the antitoxin of that disease so that any toxin of that kind happening to be produced within him is immediately neutral- ized. He is immune from or refractory to this infection for ¢ certain time, it may be years. He has fought a good fight microchemically, and his tissues now rest from their labors. Man has taken advantage of this natural chemical immunity to confer an artificial immunity on himself. When a person gets over an attack of diphtheria, it is because his body-cells, stimulated by the poison of diphtheria (diphtheritin), produced sufficient anti-diphtheri- tin to neutralize the poison; but it is clear that if he can get anti- diphtheritin ready made, the diphtheritin in his body will be neutral- ized all the quicker. He makes use of the horse. A horse, which has recovered from an attack of diphtheria and thus has in his blood plenty anti-diphtheritin (specific antitoxin) has some of his blood drawn off. If a little of this blood, specially treated, be injected into the person suffering from diphtheria, the person will recover, or if it be injected into a person about to go into the infection of the disease, that person will not take the disease. This is conferred immunity; it has been con- ferred on man by the horse’s blood-serum. Thus we have three kinds of immunity from infection: I. An original, congenital refractoriness towards the disease which may be called natural immunity ; II. Actively acquired immunity, the ordinary condition of having come successfully through an infectious illness. III. Artificially or passively acquired immunity, or conferred immunity, one of the latest triumphs of biological science. All these varieties are chemical means of defence. Coming under the head of chemical means of defence, we have the existence of an acid in the gastric juice. It is well known that when the acid (hydrochloric) is present in the stomach in the proper quan- tity, it is uncommon to be infected by microorganisms through the alimentary canal. The author knew of an officer who had come through a severe epidemic of cholera in the West Indies, and who, on being asked if he had been afraid, said: “I had no fear as long as I knew that my digestion was not out of order.” We and the other mammals are not the only animals whose alimentary canals are guarded by a free acid; there has been discovered in the Mediterranean a mollusc (Doliwm °

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THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 99 Galea) whose gastric juice contains sulphuric acid. This free grastric acid is distinctly antiseptic. We have now disposed in a certain fashion of our modes of defence against foes from without; but it is unfortunately as true in a physical as it is in a moral sense that a man’s foes are those of his own house- hold. We are liable to chemical assaults from within, whether from poisons secreted by the bacteria inhabiting our internal organs or from poisons arising from the imperfect digestion of our food. Food may have poison in it at the time it is taken, the so-called ptomaines; but poisons may be developed in it in consequence of its not undergoing its digestion in a perfectly healthy fashion. All such digestive poisons are dealt with by the liver. The liver is a very large gland placed in such a position that all the blood coming from the organs of food- absorption must pass through it on the way to the heart. The liver deals as best it can with the poison reaching it from the intestine; in some cases, retaining it for a time, it eliminates it in an altered form; in other cases it renders it innocuous and permits it to reach the circulation whence it is removed by the kidneys. This power of the liver is known as its de-toxicating power. In this way is ex- plained the well-known condition of being poisoned when the liver is “out of order.” When the liver is not doing its de-toxicating. work sufficiently well, not trapping poisons, these pass on into the blood- stream and affect the whole body; the headache and the malaise being the result in consciousness of this general chemical poisoning. Deranged digestion, then, is responsible for the production of the poisons of auto- intoxication which the liver should seize and render harmless. The chemical defences of some people are so feeble that they are always on the verge of just not protecting them from the poisons of their own intestines, so that such persons.are hardly ever free from headache. Other people suffer from periodical outbursts of poisoning associated with one-sided headache (megrim or migraine). Some of the sufferers from this distressing condition have been amongst the most distinguished in science’ and literature, for Haller, Emil du Bois Reymond, George Eliot and Sir James Simpson were all victims of it.

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TE a RE Y ae Rocer Bacon. , The great English philosopher and pioneer in science, the seven hundredth anni- versary of whose birth was celebrated at Oxford on June 10. An article describing Roger Bacon’s life and work by the late Dr. Edward S. Holden will be found in THE PopuLaR SCIENCE MONTHLY for January, 1902.

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THE PROGRES THE WORK OF THE GENERAL EDUCATION BOARD THE GENERAL EDUCATION BoarD, the foundation endowed by Mr. John D. Rockefeller, at a recent meeting made large appropriations for educational work. Following the gifts of $1,500,- 000 to the Johns Hopkins University and $750,000 to Washington University for their medical schools on condition that the professors of medicine and surgery shall devote their entire time to the work of the school and not engage in private practise, a gift of $500,000 has been made to the medical school of Yale University under similar condi- tions and the further stivulation that the school obtain control of the New Haven Hospital. Other conditional ap- propriations amounting to $700,000 were made to Stevens Institute of Tech- nology, Elmira College, Hendrix Col- lege, Washington and Lee University, Wells College and Wofford College. Increased appropriations were made to develop the work in secondary edu- cation which the board has been carry- ing on in the south for ten years. The board has maintained professors of secondary education in southern uni- versities and inspectors of secondary schools who have devoted their time to the creation and development of high schools in their several spheres. The sum of $36,500 was appropriated for the maintenance of rural school supervisors in each of the southern states. These supervisors are concerned with the improvement of country schools and with the introduction into them of industrial training and domes- tie science. The annual subscription of $10,000 toward the current expenses «:f Hampton Institute was increased to $25,000, an annual subscription of $10,- _ 000 was made to Tuskegee Institute, THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE S OF SCIENCE and one of $15,000 to Spelman Semi- nary, Atlanta. Farm demonstration work on an edu- cational basis was originated by the General Education Board. The plan was conceived by the late Dr. Seaman A. Knapp. So :far as the southern states are concerned, congress now as- sumes the work heretofore supported hy the General Education Board, objection having been made to the payment of the officers of the Department of Agri- culture by a private contribution. The board will, however, continue its co- operation with agricultural colleges in the work. For this purpoose, $20,000 was appropriated for tarm demonstra- tion in six counties in Maine and for boys’ and girls’ clubs in that state. A further appropriation of $10,000 was made for similar work in New Hamp- shire. To improve education in the rural districts the board has resolved to offer to support in connection with state de- partments of education, rural school agents. An appropriation of $50,000 was made for the work in fifteen states. A general agent will be appointed to keep the several state movements in touch with one another. The board re- solved to authorize a study of training for public health service and of the or- ganization of public health service in England, Germany, Denmark and other foreign countries. When the facts have been ascertained a conferehce will be held and a concrete scheme formu- lated for schools of public health. THE CINCINNATI NEW GENERAL HOSPITAL LARGE as are the gifts for hospitals and medical schools from private phi- lanthropy, they are likely to be sur- passed by public provision for the

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102 suppression of disease and the improve- | ment of health. Of special interest is the New General Hospital at Cincin- | nati, for we have there the only in- stance in the country of a municipal university and hospital, conducted by and for the city. A medical school and hospital, cooperating in their common work and directly controlled and sup- ported by the city, is an example which THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY meetings of various kinds, but especially for medical societies. The City thus shows its appreciation of the free serv- ice that the medical profession renders | to the city’s poor, by furnishing a meet- ing place, where not alone the staff, but every physician in the city can come and have the advantages that only a | well equipped teaching hospital can fur- nish. They need not confine their we may expect to see followed else- | meetings to this hall alone; use can be where. One may therefore note -with | made of the large amphitheater where satisfaction the admirable plans of the | will be placed powerful projecting lan- Cincinnati Ilospital indicated in the | terns and every facility for demonstra- accompanying bird’s-eye view, kindly | tions. Or they may meet in the amphi- given us with some description by Dr. theater of the spacious pathological Christian R. Holmes, dean of the med- | building where the professors of pathol- ical school and president of the new | ogy and bacteriology can give demon- hospital commission. | strations of specimens saved specially The hospital will be opened in Oc-| for such meetings. Thus the hospital tober, 1914, with 850 beds, but all ad- _may be made the city’s center for med- ministrative buildings have been built | ical education, not limited to the staff, large enough to care for 1,500 patients. | the students and internes. The buildings are located on a plot cf| Adjoining the administration build- 27 acres; adjoining this on the west and | ing is the admitting department and north are 38 additional acres, also be- | Outdoor Clinic where students can see longing to the hospital, for future ex-|every variety of emergency, medical, pansion and to be used for day camps | obstetric and surgical cases. They for children or adults needing sunshine | can also follow up and see final results and outdoor life under medical super- | in those who have recovered sufficiently vision, also night camps for men with | incipient or arrested tuberculosis, who are still bread winners, for, while lo- cated on high land in one of the sub- urbs, the grounds are easy of access. The admitting department and out- door clinic, surgical pavilion, kitchen and service building are located on the long axis of the group, to be easy of access from all the pavilions, and be- ing low structures do not interfere with light and air. All the buildings (ex- cept the contagious group) are united by large well-lighted basement and first- story corridors. A patient can be taken on a wheeled stretcher all over the twenty-seven acres through the base- ment corridors without the use of in- | clines, steps or elevators. The administration building (No. 1) contains an extensive working and ref- erence library for the staff and stu- dents and a lecture hall suitable for | to leave the hospital, but return as out- patients for treatment until entirely | eured. The basement of the admitting |department is well lighted by wide |areaways. Every patient’s clothing |passes through the large sterilizer lo- |cated here, and then goes to the tailor- | shop to be cleaned, mended and pressed | before being stored away; there is also 'a large sunstroke and poison room here | with every modern facility for treating such cases. On the main floor of the admitting department and the Outdoor |Clinie in addition to the examination and treatment rooms, we have two /wards—one for each sex, where pa- ‘tients who arrive after 9:00 P.M. are kept till the next morning, in order not to disturb the ward patients. The so- cial service department will- have its office in this building. The ambulance or any public conveyance will bring the ordinary cases to the front of the build-

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THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE ¢ THEDNEW SA RAL HOS PITAL CINCINNATI 4 OHANNAroRD.« Sons - ARCHITECTS . BIRD’S-BYE VIEW OF THE NEW GENERAL HOSPITAL, CINCINNATI. ing, but emergency cases are brought | to the rear and taken directly into the special operating room. The colonnaded corridor shown unites all the ward buildings on their north end. The basement of this corridor is well lighted and ventilated by windows varying from two to six feet in height according to the slope of the ground. The first floor and roof of this colonnade is fourteen feet wide, paved with red quarry tiles, and will be used for the open-air treatment of both bedridden and convalescent patients. The north- ern end of the building or ‘‘head house’’ is four-storied. In the first three stories of the ‘‘head house’’ are located the administrative department of the ‘‘ ward unit’’ and four small iso- lation wards. The fourth floor of the ‘*head house’’ is a roof ward, the bal- ance of the floor is open, surrounded by a nine-foot parapet pierced by numer- ous windows, permitting an extensive view of the surrounding country, and acting as a wind break when closed or permitting a free circulation of air when opened. The first 50 feet next to the ‘‘head house’’ is covered with awn- ings where patients can receive outdoor treatment and yet be protected from rain or snow. The arrangement of the wards and the other buildings of the great group shown in the illustration in all its details is the result of a great deal of study and the help of many hos- pital workers. A full description will be found in Dr. Holmes’s pamphlet: ‘¢The Planning of a Modern Hospital. ’’ DARWINISM, ORGANIC EVOLU- TION AND THE CHURCHES In the June Forum is an article by Mr. Elmer J. Kneale entitled ‘‘ Darwin, Science and Evolution,’’- which con- tains answers from prominent people to the questions: ‘‘(1) Do you believe the teachings of Darwin in their general outline remain to-day as a contribution to science? (2) Do you believe that a majority of intellectual leaders are to- day inclined to accept these teachings?’’ The answers to such questions, unless they are from experts, have of course no value in reference to the truth of Dar- win’s teachings, but they have a certain interest in revealing public sentiment. As a matter of fact, of the large num- RTT a eee eeeetaes - a at ae Sap

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104 ber who reply, only three are decidedly adverse—prelates in the Catholic and Greek churches—though several protes- tant clergymen write guardedly. The identification of Darwinism with the doctrine of organic evolution in the pub- lic mind is unfortunate, for when a scientific man argues that Darwin’s theory of natural selection is not an adequate causal explanation of the origin of species, this is distorted to he a ‘‘confession’’ that there has been no organic evolution. Sentiment among the churches against the doctrine of evolution, especially in the south, is,widespread. A curious ex- hibition is given in a statement re- cently made by a committee on behalf of the Galveston (Texas) Ministerial Association, which reads as follows: We wish to say to the public in gen- eral, but to the fathers and mothers of the children of Galveston in particular, that we, the committee appointed last week by the Ministerial Association to confer with the state superintendent of public instruction, with reference to the | expurgation of certain statements in | Tarr’s New Physical Geography plainly | teaching the Darwinian and atheistic | theory of man’s origin, have done so, | and with most gratifying results. Referring to our letter to him, Mr. Doughty says: ‘‘In reply thereto, per- | mit me to say that the copy of the book | to which you refer is of the unrevised | edition’’ (the one now in use in the) schools—Committee). ‘‘Soon after as- | suming the duties of this office on Sep- tember 1, 1913, an objection to this | THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY SCIENTIFIC ITEMS Dr. ALFRED E, BARLOW, of Montreal, distinguished for his work in Archean and mining geology, with Mrs. Barlow, was drowned in the wreck of the Em- press of Ireland. We regret also to re- cord the deaths of Jesse J. Myers, as- sistant professor of physiology and zoology at the Michigan Agricultural College; of Dr. Paul von Mauser, in- ventor of the Mauser rifle; of Mr. Rob- ert Kaye Gray, an electrical engineer, active in the promotion of scientific r- search in England, and of M. Paul Louis Toussaint Heroult, known for his work with aluminum and the electric furnace. A COMMITTEE has been formed in France, under the patronage of M. Poin- caré, president of the Republic, for the erection of a monument in honor of J. H. Fabre, the famous entomologist. The idea is, not only to erect a monu- ment at Serignan, but to preserve and to convert into a museum the estate of Harmas, the dwelling of the great nat- uralist. Subscriptions are asked from naturalists all over the world, and may be sent to the president of the com- mittee, M. Henri de ia Paillonne, mayor of Serignan (Vaucluse),,France. Dr. THoMas H. MacBripk, professor of botany, has been appointed presi- dent of the Iowa State University by | the State Board of Education.—Dr. 8. J. Meltzer, head of the department of paragraph was referred to me as chair-| physiology and pharmacology of the man of the revision committee on the | Rockefeller Institute for Medical Re- -adopted text, and I immediately took up | the matter with the publishers and suc- | search, has been elected president of ceeded in securing a satisfactory re-| the Association of American Physi- vision of the objectionable paragraph. cians in succession to Dr. Simon Flex- . . . It is my desire to do everything | ner—The Franklin Institute, Philade!- within my power to give the children of this state wholesome instruction, and | “permit me here to say that I am ‘n| phia, on May 20, presented its Elliott Cresson medals to Dr. Edgar Fahs hearty accord with the ideas and pur-' Smith and Dr. Orville Wright. poses of the Christian faith.’’ These are noble words on the part of our state superintendent, and in them we have the pleasing assurance that the new edition to be placed in the hands of our children next fall will not con- tain the Darwinian theory of evolution —and this is all we have been contend- ing for. / AN additional endowment has been provided for the Rockefeller Institute for Medieal Research, for the estab- lishment of a department of animal pathology. It is to be organized and conducted by Professor ‘Theobald Smith, of Harvard University.