BOOK REVIEW

 Agassiz’s legacy  Scientists’ Reflections on the Value of Field Experience by Elizabeth Gladfelter.  A book review by Wallace Williams 

Agassiz’s legacy  Scientists’ Reflections on the Value of Field Experience New York, New York, Oxford University Press 2002, bw photographs, indexed 437 p. : ill. ; 24 cm. Paperback and hardback on acid free paper. 

        My childhood experiences leave me with many memories of  Mr. Richardson, our science teacher, helping us with plant, animal and variety of fun science experiments undertaken in labs unlike those in today’s schools; nature became our laboratory. The creek running along the edge of the school yard and through our neighborhood, the pond next to the playground and the woods across the road served to create another kind of  science lab. Reading Agassiz’s Legacy Reflections on the Value of Field Experience by Elizabeth Gladfelter (Betsy) has helped me appreciate even more the concept of field science at its highest level. Reflected through the prism of the person-to-person interviews, her book rekindled memories of the science I was exposed to as a child in its most basic and simple form.  

        Louis Agassiz was the founder (in 1873) and “Master” of the Anderson School of Natural History on Penikese Island, Massachusetts, where he made notable contributions to science as a researcher and teacher.  Betsy succeeds in smoothing, as some might perceive, the rigid corners associated with hard science through her personal interviews with many of the top scientists in their respective eras and fields.  The book offers a candid and less complicated view of field science through passionate verbal exchanges. The overall theme of her book suggests that the world has abandoned field science, that somehow it has become a lost art.  It suggests that institutions have placed field science low on their lists of priorities. It is a shared opinion of the interviewees that students today are the worst for not being exposed more to there experience of hands-on field science.  Reading Agassiz’s Legacy will help young and aspiring scientists gain much insight as to how field science evolves, is approached and mastered.  Each of the interviewees is specific about when, why and how field science became important to them and to the scientific universe as well.  These people really enjoy their work; they enjoy sharing their discoveries, and all of what they have accomplished. They lament the  diminishing opportunities for practical focused field work to flourish. “It is suggested that if we as a society want the kind of science produced by this group of scientists; if we want to pass the art of field science to the next generation; then we must provide the same kinds of opportunities to learn these skills through the kinds of mentors, courses and field opportunities which were available to these distinguished scientists” (publisher’s note).

         In the preface Betsy articulates exactly why she wrote this book “…through the years I have developed the overriding belief that people are what is important.  People, not institutions or governments, make decisions; people get things done; people influence other people’s lives”. Indeed the scientists she interviews are her colleagues, her mentors and her friends; they are about the history and nature of field science. Betsy obviously is proud to be able to interview and interact with them…two of the interviewees, Dennis Hubbard and Karla Parsons Hubbard, were her colleagues at the Fairleigh Dickinson University West Indies Lab, in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands.  A number of them have been drawn to St.Croix and the lab as researchers and consultants.  Her personal interviews are conducted at appropriate locations…you sense that she is at home with these scientists, that they are comfortable with her and her questions.  Agassiz’s tradition has been carried on by this group from the 1930’s to the present.  Their fields span the natural sciences including: biology, geology, ecology, oceanography, and anthropology.     

        Agassiz’s legacy is organized into seven chapters; it is well indexed and has a host of captioned black and white photographs.  There are two significant illustrations, they are reprints including: “The Hutchinson Tree, showing the academic descendents (Ph.D.s) of G. Evelyn Hutchinson of Yale University as of 1971 and “The Smith Colony, showing the academic descendents (Ph. D.s) of Ralph I. Smith of the University of California Berkeley as of 1988”.  Betsy comes out of the R.I. Smith colony through L. Muscatine  and C.Hand.  The collection of these face-to-face interviews make for an excellent oral history.  One is challenged to find another work with similar goals and objectives. The organization of the book makes it possible for the reader to make various personal choices. One can select a period (generation) and start there; one can choose to read about the women or start with the first chapter and continue on. The chapters are: Natural Science at the end of the Twentieth Century;  The World War II Generation; The Silent Generation of the 1950’s; The Sputnik Generation of the 1960’s; The Last of the Golden Years The 1970’s; The Lean Years of The 1980’s and Natural Sciences of the Twenty-first century. Each chapter is accompanied by a relevant quote from a notable scientist. Each interview lists the name of the scientist, the year they were born, their current position in the profession, the date and place of the interview.  Each interview is preceded with a brief biographical sketch.  A panorama of individual accomplishments in the field’s of the natural science spreads before you, there for the taking. 

        In these days of budget crunches, competitive research and frantic justifying of requests for grants, one question often arises: can society afford to continue support of goal-less, open ended, so-called ‘pure’ scientific research?  After reading Gladfelter’s wide-ranging collection of interviews with all manner of field-oriented scientists from throughout the varied and often obscure by-ways of scientific exploration, the question really is: can we afford not to do it?

 Personal Note: Betsy and her husband Bill have been friends of mine for over 25 years.  As endurance athletes we have been involved in the development of endurance events in St. Croix and the Virgin Islands as originators, organizers and competitors.  Betsy and I competed in two world cross-country championships including the first ever held in the western hemisphere at The Meadowlands, NJ and Neuchatel, Switzerland, co-incidentally where Agassiz took up a professorship at the Lyceum of Neuchatel in Switzerland.  Betsy and Bill were instrumental in the development of the first multi-sport competition (a form of triathlon) for students and faculty at West Indies Lab in St. Croix and perhaps the Virgin Islands.  They have lectured in topics related to marine science and endurance sports to library patrons and athletes at the Florence Williams Public Library and other locations on several occasions.  We continue to compete as endurance athletes, in the marathon, cycling and triathlon.  Their contribution to marine science through their contact with hundreds of students who have experienced FDU West Indies Lab and the value of their research has yet to be fully appreciated.