Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 42.djvu/482

 464 limited to research, and its workers would be few and for the most part transients in search of material to be taken away and worked up elsewhere. Its function, however, would be none the less important in subserving interests that could not otherwise be so conveniently and efficiently provided for. It ought, therefore, to receive the heartiest support from all who are interested in the advancement of biology.

Of the marine laboratories now in existence on our coast, the Marine Biological Laboratory holds a somewhat exceptional position, both in its organization and in its general aims. It owes its inception to some members of the Boston Society of Natural History acting in co-operation with the Woman's Educational Association of that city. It is controlled by a board of some twenty trustees, representing the following institutions: Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Princeton, Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Williams College, University of Cincinnati, Bowdoin College, Boston Society of Natural History, the Missouri Botanical Garden of St. Louis, Philadelphia Academy of Science, University of Chicago, and the University of Toronto. This representative board has been extended every year until it may now be said to have a national character, including the majority of our leading biologists who are interested in marine work. Its officers of instruction have been taken from Harvard, Brown, Princeton, Clark, Chicago, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Bryn Mawr, Cornell, Massachusetts Experiment Station, University of Nebraska, Boston Society of Natural History, University of Cincinnati, Ohio Wesleyan University, and the Allis Lake Laboratory. Its membership has extended to nearly all the more important educational institutions of the country. It represents the third attempt that has been made to unite our universities and colleges in the support of a marine laboratory. Mr. Alexander Agassiz made the first attempt as early as 1874, at the close of the last season at Penikese; and ten years later a second attempt was made by Prof. Baird. Although these efforts failed of their immediate object, they certainly prepared the way for whatever has been accomplished since. The aim from the outset has been to provide for both investigation and instruction, but for the latter as subsidiary to the former. The problem has been to combine the two in such relations that each would contribute most to the same end—the advancement of science. We have always kept in view the necessity of providing as early as possible a separate building for the exclusive use of investigators. Our effort from the beginning, as declared in every annual report, and as shown in every step thus far taken, has been to uphold a plan of national breadth; and it is on this basis that we have asked and received the support