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more the relation between teacher and pupil. George Washington is also trying to make the last two years more specialized and more sharply separated from the first two, and this idea is being put into practice all over the country. The idea is an excellent one. The university, however, is only a part of our educational system and the upper part a t that. For such an advance to be beneficial, there must be a thorough reorganization of the whole system, from the primary grades up, such opportunities being offered a t every stage, else the sudden throwing of a student on his own resources may prove disastrous. Also much good material may be wasted because of lack of earlier recognition and opportunity. Mass education is insufficient not only in the case of the university, but in every branch and grade of education. To be sure, school boards are making a definite effort in this direction. More power to them! M. W. G.
PROPAGANDA BY PUBLIC UTILITY CORPORATIONS* This article on propaganda by public utility corporations is in effect a preliminary report prepared by the author a t the request of the Association's Committee on Ethics and is approved by them. It contains four sections: History, character, and purpose of the report. I. 11. What do the facts show? 111. Statement of the principle involved. IV. Consideration of fundamental problems. In the first section attention is called to the efforts of many upon both sides of the controversy to clear up the confusion and misunderstandings that are evident. The relationship of industry to the academic instructor needs clarification for the benefit of the public as well as of the industry and the professor. In this report, which is chiefly concerned with the teacher's side of the case, it is made very evident that the professor is to give thought to the duties and obligations of his position as well as its privileges. The facts when studied are said to justify the conclusion that "there has been much confusion in the public mind as to the various activities of the public utilities." This conclusion is illustrated. The public, as well as some of the committees, has failed to distinguish between the various categories of academic instructors. Very few cases are noted of alleged impropriety on the part of regular (over against some part-time subordinate) instructors in the academic departments.
* E. R . A. Seligman. Bull. Am. Assoc. Uniw. Profs.,
16, 349-68 (May, 1930)
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As to the principle involved, it is well to get back to the original and real connotation of the term propaganda. This word came into disrepute during the war when governments sought to build national morale by spreading half-truths and sometimes absolute untruths under the guise of public information in regard to the real state of international affairs. Originally this term was practically synonymous with education. So used " propaganda in itself is entirely innocuous." The report proceeds: The fundamental principle, in any question of propaganda is that full, complete, entire and honest publicity-publicity as t o the source, publicity as t o the motives, publicity as to the objectives. In matters of possible importance for public policy, the principle is that of deserving and maintaining public confidence by a jealous observance of precautions against active bias or against occasioning the suspicion of bias.
Under the fourth section the report considers six problems. These are concerned with: conditions under which instructors may undertake outside employment; relation of such outside employment to the instructor's advice to public legislative or administrative bodies; method of remuneration for such employment; whether the technical scientist should presume to make public pronouncements in other fields such as that of economics; the propriety of educational institutions receiving donations or subventions from businesses or business associations and finally the propriety of the academic instructor accepting remuneration from a private source for the expression of opinion upon controversial questions of public policy. In conclusion the author says, Great as are the rights of the university professor, far greater are his obligations to his associates, t o the institution which he serves, t o the public of which he is a part, and to the august and imperious mistressscience--of whom he is a humble representative and t o whom he owes the most loyal and undivided fealty.
B. C . H.
BIBLIOCHRESIS: THE PILOT OF RESEARCH BIBLIOCHRESIS, the scientific use of literature, has the pilotage of all scientific investigation. It has, in fact, the same relation t o research as the latter has to management; it is the intelligence service of all orderly inquiry, the preparational agent of factual determination, the guide of experimental trial in eliminating chance, in the whole realm of science. To be scientific, an investigation of any type must be made methodically-a condition that requires, primarily, that all scientific research be conducted in the light of recorded experience. This requirement applies t o the exercise of the historical and analytic procedures of investigation as well as t o the employment of the experimental method, whose use, whether for confirmation or for original work, rests upon prior knowledge . and art, i. e.. acceoted oractice. Bihliochresis, then, is the most indispensable tool in laying the ioundauon for sdentiic research. Since i t enables the qualified worker t o find the exuerience of his predecessors, as recorded in the literature, i t confers upon him either the power t o
