It is evident that the legislation abolishing the Bureau of Chemistry and establishing a new Bureau of Chemistry and Soils and transferring the food activities to a new department in direct violation of existing law was a regrettable mistake. One of its purposes was the discouragement of research by the chemists employed in the regulatory unit. This was a feature of great importance to the force of the.old Bureau of Chemistry. In all matters of research those who are studying these problems must be in direct contact with the problems themselves. This is particularly true of research in the problems relating to foods and drugs. If the problem is not before the research worker he would be up in the air all the time as to what to do. The problem must be before the research chemist. He must have an opportunity to study all the relations of these problems to the industry itself; otherwise he would be groping blindly in his attempts to find out any new principles which are basic in the particular industry which he is examining. There is no branch of investigation that needs more research than is found in the problems which arise in the very numerous conditions springing from the new foods and drugs administration.
In Science of April 1, 1927, page 307, Professor Metcalf makes the following statement:
"We believe that every normal individual is born with some endowment of the research spirit--the inquiring mind given to trying to find out by exercise of its own powers. Normal children are full of natural curiosity and they have to a fair degree the habit of experimenting; that is, they are endowed with something of the research spirit.
"We believe that this mental habit of learning by self-reliant experiment should be conserved and strengthened from the beginning throughout life. We believe that all education, from pre-kindergarten age on through the university, should have this encouragement of the spirit and habit of research as a main object. We believe that no worth-while job in life can be done with proper effectiveness in any other spirit. We believe that, in all education, learning through self-reliant experiment and exercise of individual judgment should dominate and that the habit of stopping with faith in the printed statement in the textbook should be avoided as leading to fatty degeneration of the mind and soul. We believe that teaching should be conducted only by those who have the research attitude themselves and have ability to cultivate it in their pupils."
