scientific men. The present organization of the laboratory is a corporation, composed of those interested in the research work of the laboratory, which elects trustees, chiefly biologists representing different universities. This democratic form of government must surely be the ideal of scientific men. They may endure the usual board of trustees composed of men of affairs who delegate authority to a president; they may even realize the business efficiency of such an organization; but they look forward to the time when they will choose their own leaders and define their own policy. The laboratory at Woods Hole has illustrated both the strength and weakness of a democratic organization. There has been friction in the management, and the finances have never been in a satisfactory condition. On the other hand, there has been enthusiasm, self-sacrifice and a high ideal of research. If the Woods Hole laboratory is directed from Washington it will go forward with the efficiency of the scientific departments of the government, and will be practically one of these, being for all essential purposes coordinate with the Fish Commission or the Geological Survey, but with scarcely one fiftieth of the income. There will not, however, be found a director who will devote himself to the service of the laboratory without dreaming of receiving a dollar's salary, or men of science ready to give freely the time and money of which they have so little to spare. Those connected with the laboratory will no longer seek to give what they can, but rather to get what they can, and the whole spirit of the place will change.
Just for a handful of silver he left us,
Just for a riband to stick in his coat—
Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us,
Lost all the others she lets us devote;
They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver,
So much was theirs who so little allowed:
How all our copper had gone for his service!
SCIENCE IN AMERICAN JOURNALS.
The fact that the Forum and the International Monthly, both of which include science in their scope, have abandoned monthly publication and will hereafter appear but four times a year is somewhat disquieting; it seems to indicate that journals maintaining a high standard are not well supported in this country. We have left only the North American Review and The Popular Science Monthly, in addition to the monthlies that depend chiefly on politics, fiction or literary gossip. The North American Review has at times tended to rely more on the names signed to its articles than on their contents, and must on the whole be regarded as a political rather than as a literary journal. The Popular Science Monthly has a limited and definite field, for which it is urgently needed and in which it is adequately supported; but the larger part of its contents can not be regarded as literature. We keep within the limits of obvious truth in stating that this journal in its special field has set a standard for other nations which they have not yet met. The same is true of our illustrated monthlies which reflect all degrees of taste and refinement. They have carried mechanical illustration and the short story to a singular point of perfection. But it can not be claimed that photo-engraving and the short story are the highest forms of art. The editor of one of our most prosperous monthlies has recently stated that a magazine should never contain any thing that could as well have been published the month before. The requirements of true literature are the reverse; nothing is literature that could not as well be published a year hence. The magazine seems likely to devour its own offspring, for while there come forward many new writers of short stories, but few survive. A month's life does not encourage a writer to do his best work, and we have in
