Research is better carried out in other places. The great fields of nature are the places to study nature's ways. Museums at their best contain but a human selection of the things of the universe, and any conclusion based on their specimens is liable to errors due to the personal bias of the selector. Collections should represent the organized results of systematic investigations rather than their sole basis. Museums should be more of a record of researches successfully completed and now made available for all, than of places to carry on such work.

(True of some kinds of research, this is certainly not true of others. For example, a naturalist who undertakes to revise the classification of a group of animals or plants must depend mainly upon museum material, since he cannot hope to duplicate by his own efforts in the field the labors of scores or hundreds of collectors.)

Lastly, granting the great if not the exclusive importance of the museum as an educational institution for the public at large, Dr. Sterns reminds us that

there still remains the question of the type of education to be given. Most of these institutions seem to be to-day in the position the universities were fifty years ago. They believe their function to be educational, but the public must have no say in what it will be taught. The museums have a "required course of study," and this is cultural rather than practical. A few great museums are now trying the "elective system," they have added technical and occupational "classes," and they are even going in for "university" extension. In this democratization of the museums, the needs and desires of the people are being taken more into account, and room is being found even for the craftsman. A museum's chief function is educational, in the widest sense of that term.

THE NEW ERA

GOOD while

OF INDUSTRIAL

A while ago the Scientific

American ventured the suggestion that the impetus given by the world war to scientific research might produce material and intellectual results that would indemnify humanity for all that the struggle has cost. On another occasion the same journal remarked:

The thaumaturgy of the great war is no way more strikingly evinced than in the creation of various official bodies for the sake of promoting the acquisition of knowledge rather than its application. Officialdom finally realizes that it is impossible to raise crops without first sowing the seed. Adversity is a rough but efficient schoolmaster, and the chastisement that humanity is now undergoing has already driven home some priceless lessons.

Certainly the war has completely altered the attitude of the powers that be, on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, toward scientific investigation. In a brief address, published in Science, dealing with the changed order of ideas on this subject, Prof. G. E. Hale, chairman of the National Research Council, says:

At the outbreak of the war the average statesman of the Allied powers was but little concerned with the interest of research. Necessity, however, soon opened his eyes. He began to perceive the enormous advantages derived by Germany from the utilization of science, and sought to offset them by the creation of appropriate agencies. Thus arose throughout the British Empire a

group of councils for scientific and industrial research. The first of these was established in England by an order in council issued in 1915. Subsequently, Canada, Australia and South Africa followed the example of the mother country, and New Zealand proposes to do likewise. The world-wide movement swept across the empire, and its benefits will be felt in every country under the British flag. A similar awakening was experienced in France and Italy, but in both of these countries the pressure of the war concentrated attention for the moment upon military problems. At present, the needs of industry are also under consideration, and research organizations are being developed to meet them.

Our own country followed suit by establishing the National Research Council, which has justified its existence so admirably that everybody hopes it will be made. a permanent institution.

The exigencies of the moment have given a one-sided character to the work of these various national organizations, which have thus far devoted their attention almost en

tirely to industrial problems. This fact is exemplified in the work of the British Advisory Council for Scientific and Industrial Research during the year 1916-17, as set forth in its first annual report.

In this period it devoted itself mainly to the organization of industrial research, partly because of the prime importance of stimulating and fixing the interest of manufacture in the development of industry through research, and partly because the effect of the war has been to render

industrial leaders more susceptible than ever before to the growth of new ideas. In pure science, on the contrary, the war has seriously affected the prosecution of research, because so many investigators have been drawn into military and industrial activities. Thus, while the advisory council strongly emphasizes the fundamental importance of pure science, it has been forced to postpone its activities in this field until the arrival of more favorable conditions.

The British Advisory Council, aided by a government appropriation of one million pounds, is actively promoting the organization of trade research associations for the mutual benefit of the members of the great industries. Thus a provisional committee representative of the British cotton industry has proposed the establishment of a cooperative association for research in cotton, to include in its membership cotton spinning, the thread-making firms, cloth, lace, and hosiery manufacturers, bleachers, dyers, printers, and finishers, which will conduct researches extending from the study of the cotton plant to the "finishing" of the manufactured article. The woolen and worsted manufacturers of Great Britain are also drafting the constitution of a research association, and the Irish flax spinners and weavers are about to do likewise. Research associations will be established by the Scottish shale oil industry and the photographic manufacturers, while various other British industries are looking in the same direction. Thus a national movement for research, directly resulting from the war, has already made marked headway.

In the United States, where research carried on in the laboratories of individual corporations, such as the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, the General Electric Company, the Eastman Kodak Company, the Dupont Companies and the Westinghouse Electric Company, has been so rich in results for the whole nation, there are also some promising examples of coöperative research, analogous to the enterprises recently launched in Great Britain.

A useful example is that afforded by the National Canners' Association, which has established a central research laboratory in Washington, where any member of the association can send his problems for solution and where extensive investigations, the results of which are important to the entire industry, are also conducted.

The National Research Council, aided and supported by the Engineering Foundation, is just entering upon an extensive campaign for the promotion of industrial research. In addition to a strong active committee, comprising the heads of leading industrial laboratories and others prominently identified with scientific methods of developing American industries, an advisory committee has been formed to back the move

ment.

IT by bit the veil of secrecy is being

BIT

lifted from the war activities of the lately belligerent countries, and facts are coming to light that surpass in interest the liveliest bulletins from the firing line. One of these revelations is contributed to the New York Times by Mr. Richard Barry, who has paid a visit to a government establishment concerning which hardly a shred of information had previously reached the public. He tells us:

Twenty-six miles from Baltimore, on the edge of the Government's vast Aberdeen ordnance proving grounds, is a 300-acre tract, fenced off even from the comparative publicity of the conventional big guns, guarded from prying eyes along every rod by soldiers with drawn bayonets. Twelve months ago it was a Maryland farm. To-day it is the largest poison-gas factory on earth. It can produce, probably three or four times over, more mustard gas, phosgene, chlorine and other noxious fumes than the intensified war output of England, France, and Germany combined. It was just completed and ready to function for the $60,000,000 invested there when the

armistice was signed on November 11. Now it lies silent and idle like the great cannon along the Lorraine border, but ready to operate at a moment's notice.

The writer was shown over the plant by the commanding officer, Col. W. H. Walker, late professor of chemical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Colonel Walker expounded the history of gas warfare to his visitor, and pointed out that the Germans evidently had no idea of using gas when the war began; otherwise they would have used it sooner and more effectively than they did. They would, in all probability, have speedily won the war if they had used at the outset the methods that were ultimately developed.

"The French and English, as you know, were reluctant to use gas, deeming it inhumanitarian. Our Government suffered from the same indecision in the early months of our part in the war. However, we came to it in time, just as did the French and English. But, although the English finally utilized every available facility they could

command in the manufacture of toxic gases, their total production at its highest point never went above an average of thirty tons a day. The best the French could do was much less than this. You can get the whole story in one sentence when I tell you that our American capacity for September and October was on an average of two hundred tons a day. Remember that these figures are not in pounds, as powder figures are usually given, but in tons. And a drop of gas, properly placed, kills or incapacitates."

"What was the German production?" I asked. "We do not know," replied Colonel Walker, "but from available data and the estimates of military observers on the ground we do not think it was over thirty tons a day. It may have been fifty tons a day, but certainly no more.

"It was last October before the American Government decided to manufacture poison gas on a scale commensurate with the rest of our military preparations."

The Government's investment here is $60,000,000. Elsewhere there has been spent, at various subsidiary plants, about $12,000,000. Thus all told the United States has spent about $72,000,000 in the manufacture of toxic gases, practically none of which have any commercial value.

The immense plant, with its miles of railway and piping, and a bewildering array of apparatus installed in buildings of concrete and sheet iron, is remarkable not only for having been completed in less than a year, but also and especially because it embodies. many new ideas, for which Colonel Walker is chiefly responsible. The British and French experts who came to aid in the undertaking eventually became students rather than teachers.

As might have been expected, it was difficult to find laborers and operators for an establishment that bristled with new and unknown dangers. On one occasion a general panic was caused by a cloud of dust from an ox-cart, which was mistaken for poison gas. Colonel Walker said:

"Finally we found that no one could or would do the work except soldiers, and the army then detailed to us the necessary allotments. When the armistice was signed we had more than 7000 men, all drafted American citizens, doing the work for $30 a month, but without honor or glory. At one time we had over 14,000."

"The work of these boys is beyond praise," said Colonel Walker, who spoke of this phase of the activity with deep, affectionate feeling. "I have been striving to get the army authorities to recognize it by bestowing a Service Medal. I contend that no soldier on the firing line is more entitled to it. These fellows have been here risking their lives, day by day, for a pittance. Nothing but patriotism induced them to do it. And every man knew that every time he went to work he stood in imminent danger of serious injury and of losing his life."

Mr. Barry went through the two large hospitals attached to the plant, and he tells some blood-curdling stories of the innumerable injuries caused by the treacherous gases. He believes that when the records of the war are published it will be found that the percentage of casualties at the Edgewater Arsenal, as this plant is called, was as high as that of any division of the Army in France. (We must await official verification of the statement that during last August the admissions to the hospital from the mustard-gas plant were at the rate of 31⁄2 per cent. of the force per day!)

The writer plausibly asserts that the preparations made at this establishment for largescale production of gas, having become known to the German authorities, were an important factor in leading the enemy to sign the armistice. The commanding officer stated:

"Our idea was to have containers that would hold a ton of mustard gas carried over fortresses like Metz and Coblenz by plane, and released with a time fuse arranged for explosion several hundred feet above the forts. The mustard gas, being heavier than air, would then slowly settle while it also dispersed. A one-ton container could thus be made to account for perhaps an acre or more of territory, and not one living thing, not even a rat, would live through it. The planes were made and successfully demonstrated, the containers were made, and we were turning out the mustard gas in the requisite quantities in September.

"However, there were obstacles besides the physical to overcome. The allied Governments were not in favor of such wholesale gas attack by air. England was the first to accede to it, but France hesitated because of her fear of reprisals. Finally, the French Government consented, but only with the proviso that the attack would not be made until our line had advanced so that there was no chance of the gas being blown back into French territory and until the allied command was in complete command of the air so as to insure safety from possible reprisals. These two conditions could not have been met before next spring. It was then that we planned to release the one-ton containers over the German cities which were fortified and so became subject to attack under the laws of war.

"We would have had ready in France for such an attack thousands of tons of mustard gas. There is not the slightest doubt in my mind that we could have wiped out any German city we pleased to single out, and probably several of them, within a few hours of giving the release signal.

"We closed down the day the armistice was signed. We had more than 2500 tons waiting on the piers ready for shipment. Somehow we had been cheated of our prey, but we were content. We felt sure the gas had done its work even though most of it still lay idle in our dooryard."

The Great Adventure. By Theodore Roosevelt. Charles Scribner's Sons. 204 pp. $1.

In this little book Colonel Roosevelt pays his tribute to the officers and men of our army in France, who, he says, "have established a record such as only the few very finest troops of any other army could equal, and which could not be surpassed." Colonel Roosevelt proceeds to show why it is that Americans were willing to give their lives in the Great Adventure, and how a sound nationalism is related to a sound internationalism. He cannot refrain from a word of warning against "parlor Bolshevism"-a peril to which America seems peculiarly subject.

Foch The Man. By Clara E. Laughlin. Fleming H. Revell Company. 155 pp. Ill. $1.

This first popular biography of the Allied General-in-Chief has been given to the world by an American woman who was singularly fortunate in securing materials that never before had been made known to the English-speaking world. There is a prefatory word of appreciation from Lieutenant-Colonel Réquin, of the French General Staff, who contributed the character sketch of Marshal Foch to the December number of this REVIEW. Miss Laughlin's account of the great Marshal's career is gracefully written and interesting throughout.

The Essentials of an Enduring Victory. By André Chéradame. Charles Scribner's Sons. 259 pp. Ill. $1.50.

A book written for the express purpose of stimulating public opinion during the armistice period preceding permanent peace. M. Chéradame, the French publicist, who is now in this country, wishes to warn the Allies against the dangers of any form of negotiated peace. He insists on Germany's absolute disarmament and full reparation for war damages.

The People's Part in Peace. By Ordway Tead. Henry Holt & Co. 156 pp. $1.10.

A popular statement of the problems before the Peace Conference in their economic aspects. Excluding from his consideration questions of selfdetermination, territorial adjustment, and political demands of all sorts, the author concentrates on questions of raw materials, foreign trade and investments, shipping, and labor laws. His aim is to show how practical effect may be given to the Inter-Allied Labor War Aims, which he regards as in complete harmony with President Wilson's "fourteen points."

Impressions of the Kaiser. By David Jayne Hill. Harper & Brothers. 368 pp. $2.

The title of Dr. Hill's book only partly con

notes its content; for the "impressions" have been expanded, by orderly and scholarly process, into a connected, clearly-stated exposition of German imperialism. As American Ambassador to Germany in 1908-11, Dr. Hill came to know the Kaiser well at a time when he was "under fire" on the field of diplomacy. Dr. Hill's account is restrained, judicious, and temperate throughout. His method of dealing with Wilhelm II is the historian's method-that is to say, he lets the Kaiser reveal himself through his own acts and words.

The United States in the World War. By John Bach McMaster. D. Appleton & Company. 485 pp. $3.

A convenient summary of the documentary and diplomatic history of the part played by the United States in the Great War. The story begins with Germany's declaration of war in 1914, and proceeds with an account of each successive phase of the conflict that had a bearing on the final decision of the United States to enter the war. There are chapters on neutral trade, on the war restrictions placed on it, the sinking of the Lusitania and other ships without warning, the campaigns of propaganda carried on in America, and the revelations of German intrigue that came after our active participation began.

The Reckoning. By James M. Beck. G. P. Putnam's Sons. 225 pp. $1.50.

A timely discussion of the moral aspects of the peace problem, with particular reference to the reconstruction of Germany and of America's part as peacemaker. The concluding chapter is an exposition of President Wilson's "fourteen points" in which the author does not hesitate to express dissent from such statements of principle as seem to him inadequate.

The World War and Leadership in a Democracy. By Richard T. Ely. The Macmillan Company. 189 pp. $1.50.

In this little book Professor Ely condenses the fruitage of a lifetime devoted to the study of the conditions and problems that are suggested by the title. Forty years ago he was a student at the German universities of Halle, Heidelberg, and Berlin. His last visit to Germany was in 1913; and throughout the intervening period his observation of the factors of German strength and weakness was kept up through various contracts. Professor Ely's mature estimate of the sources of Germany's power is important. He concedes much to the German encouragement of leadership in a democracy, which is really the chief contribution made by the book. From this point of view, Professor Ely disapproves of primary elections and refuses to accept the referen

dum or the recall as panaceas. On the other hand, he makes thought-provoking suggestions regarding the range and possibilities of leadership in American public life. He is a firm believer in the value of the representative system as worked out in our democracy.

The World's Debate. By William Barry. George H. Doran Company. 332 pp. $1.50.

A Catholic priest's review and defense of the course of the Allies in the war. Although written from an English standpoint, it contains an appreciative chapter on America's part in the great debate. Dr. Barry is a distinguished English scholar and historian.

America and Britain. By H. H. Powers. The Macmillan Company. 76 pp. 40 cents.

A frank, straightforward story of Anglo-American relations from Colonial days to the present moment. Mr. Powers does well to make no concealment of the fact that this is, as he says, "the record of two very human peoples, both keen in the pursuit of self-interest, and much more conscious of immediate than of ultimate ends." Nevertheless, as Mr. Powers points out, these peoples have always on the whole gotten on together, and have differed and even quarreled without permanent estrangement. It is his conviction that as no crisis in our history has been, or could have been safely passed without the sympathy of Great Britain, so it may be said from this time on, not a single crisis in the history of either people can be safely passed without mutual aid and help.

The Doctor in War. By Woods Hutchinson. Houghton, Mifflin Company. 481 pp. Ill. $2.50. The value and interest of Dr. Hutchinson's book is in no way lessened because the fighting has stopped. The facts that it sets forth are of permanent interest, having to do not merely with the welfare of the soldier and sailor in wartime, but with the physical progress of the race in time of peace. What Dr. Hutchinson learned in his year passed in the base hospitals and training camps in England, France, and Italy has a direct application in the unceasing warfare with disease that is conducted by all modern nations. The distinctly optimistic tone of the book would seem to most readers to be fully justified by the triumphs of medical and surgical science that it describes. We may indeed accept the physical upbuilding of our troops as one of the compensations for the hardships that our country has undergone in taking its part in the Great War.

The Ninety-First: The First at Camp Lewis. By Alice Palmer Henderson. Tacoma: John C. Barr. 510 pp.

We have in this story of the Ninety-first Division at Camp Lewis a book which derives its broad, general interest from its definitely local character. The call to arms created like magic a series of military towns. If a writer undertook to tell about the human side of experience in all these camps, the attempt would fail. Each camp was large enough and varied enough to justify an elaborate picture of its own. Furthermore, such a picture, to be clear and consistent, must pertain to a particular period in the life of the camp,

and cannot very well describe successive divisions, but must content itself with one body of men who at a particular time were organized as the population of this military community. Mrs. Henderson, who is an accomplished scholar in Northwestern history and conversant with natural science, gives a most agreeable picture of the topography of Camp Lewis, and reminds us of the history of the Lewis and Clark exploration. The book contains many pictures of officers and camp scenes, and has a series of pages left partly blank for the personal records of individual soldiers. This idea is so good that one may suggest the author would have been justified in increasing the number of such pages. The very freedom and informality of the book adds to its value for the thousands who were associated with the Ninety-first Division at Camp Lewis, while helping to show other divisional or cantonment historians how great is the opportunity to make an indispensable book while memories are fresh and illustrations are available.

Heroes of Aviation. By Laureance La Tourette Driggs. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. 301 pp. Ill. $1.50.

Interesting accounts of the achievements of French, British, and American airmen during the war. One striking fact brought out by the author is that twenty British aviators have exceeded by over one hundred the number of victories claimed by the best twenty aces of the Germans. In this volume, for the first time, the complete story of the American Lafayette Escadrille is given in de

tail.

German Submarine Warfare. By Wesley Frost. D. Appleton & Company. 243 pp. Ill. $1.50.

The author of this book was United States consul at Queenstown when the Lusitania was sunk, and had intimate knowledge, not only of that crime, but of many other U-boat sinkings of merchant vessels, has made a careful study of the methods and spirit of German submarine warfare. Having examined the reports of hundreds of survivors of torpedoed ships and verified many stories of German ruthlessness, his testimony and conclusions are of the highest importance. reports of these matters to the Government at Washington were officially commended by the Secretary of State and an introduction to the present volume is supplied by Mr. Frank Lyon Polk, Counsellor for the Department.

His

Alsace-Lorraine. By George Wharton Edwards. Philadelphia: The Penn Publishing Company. 335 pp. Ill. $6.

As a relief from the political and diplomatic discussions of Alsace-Lorraine, this volume of sketches of the people, country, and many of the ancient buildings of the two provinces, together with the descriptive text by Mr. Edwards is most entertaining. Most of the drawings are reproduced in color and remind one of the best examples of the earlier work of Mr. Edwards, as presented in "Vanished Halls and Cathedrals of France" and "Vanished Towers and Chimes of Flanders."