herbert spencer jennings at johns hopkins, 1906-19381

AMER. ZOOL., 27:807-817 (1987)

A Man Out of Place: Herbert Spencer Jennings atJohns Hopkins, 1906-19381

SHARON KINGSLAND

History of Science Department, The Johns Hopkins University,Baltimore, Maryland 21218

SYNOPSIS. Herbert Spencer Jennings (1868-1947) succeeded W. K. Brooks as Directorof the Zoological Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University in 1910. His scientific work inthe next two decades included experimental genetics of protozoa and mathematical analysisof the linear arrangement of chromosomes. At the same time, Jennings was involved inphilosophical discussions of the nature of biological thought. His point of view expressedthe biologist's awareness of diversity and historical process, against both the excesses ofvitalism and of the modern reductionist methods of physico-chemical biology. Thesephilosophical discussions are seen against the background of his difficulty in building upthe zoological laboratory at Johns Hopkins in the 1920s, when the university tried unsuc-cessfully to return to the ideal of pure research which had guided it under its first president.Moreover, Jennings faced strong competition for resources from within the universityitself, especially at the medical school. His position illustrates the predicament of themodern general biologist in an environment increasingly dominated by the medical sci-

INTRODUCTION

In 1906 W. K. Brooks recruited into theDepartment of Biology at Johns HopkinsUniversity the man whom he expected tobe his eventual successor. Herbert SpencerJennings (1868-1947) was a most fittingsuccessor, for he shared with Brooks abroad, philosophical understanding ofbiology. From time to time over the nextfew years, Jennings would find himself inthe role of a defender of biological think-ing against the reductionist onslaught ofthe modern physico-chemical enthusiasts.His defenses of biology as an autonomousscience, not reducible to physics or chem-istry, take on special interest when seen inthe context of his struggles to build up hiszoological laboratory, which was facinggrowing competition from other labora-tories within the university itself. Jen-nings's story in part illustrates the predic-ament of the general biologist of the early20th century, living in an environmentincreasingly dominated by the medical sci-ences.

1 From the Symposium on The Role of Johns HopkinsUniversity in the Development of Experimental and Quan-titative Biology in America presented at the AnnualMeeting of the American Society of Zoologists, 27-30 December 1985, at Baltimore, Maryland.

A MAN OF PROMISE

When Jennings moved to Johns Hopkinsin 1906 he was in the midst of a debatewith the foremost proponent of the phys-ico-chemical approach to life, JacquesLoeb. The scientific problem concernedthe analysis of behavior in the lower organ-isms. Loeb's experiments were intended toillustrate how behavior could be seen as aset of deterministic responses to stimuli.Jennings's experiments were meant toillustrate the opposite, that purely mechan-ical explanations were inadequate for bio-logical processes. His observations sug-gested that even in protozoa behavior wasnot programmed and his descriptionsemphasized its complexity (Jennings,1962). He was trying to present behavior,not as something reducible to law, as Loebhad tried to do, but as it actually occurred,or as he later said, "as a moving picturewould show it." These ideas soon arousedLoeb and his disciples and a controversyensued (Pauly, 1981). In fact, Loeb wasnever able to understand what Jenningswas trying to convey, for their perspectiveson biology were very different. He con-fessed that he could not even read Jen-nings's criticisms straight through. But ifthe conflict was never fully settled betweenthem, at least Jennings escaped relativelyunscathed, with his scientific reputation

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808 SHARON KINGSLAND

intact: not all scientists who crossed Loebwere as lucky. Arriving at Hopkins at theage of thirty-eight, he was a man of solidaccomplishment, and a man of promise.

Jennings himself was thrilled to be atHopkins, where the ideal of research andof graduate education had been instilled atthe founding of the institution by its firstpresident, Daniel Coit Gilman. He wasexcited when Brooks explained to him thatpart of his duties would simply be to doresearch in the laboratory, so that studentscould see him and profit from his example.All in all he declared Hopkins to be "thepleasantest university place in the coun-try": eight hours of teaching per week forfour months, the rest of the time forresearch. Although he started with respon-sibility for the undergraduate courses,Brooks had led him to believe he wouldeventually take over the research work asBrooks's successor.

His opportunity came unexpectedlywhen Brooks died of heart failure in thefall of 1908. But before a successor hadbeen named, a potentially more attractiveopportunity surfaced for Jennings: a posi-tion in pure research at the RockefellerInstitute for Medical Research. SimonFlexner, the institute's director, asked himin the spring of 1909 whether he would beinterested in a study of cell growth anddivision as part of a new program in tumorresearch there. Thinking over the pastthree years, Jennings felt that even a rel-atively light teaching load had provedexhausting enough: three lectures a weekwere enough to force him practically totake to his bed for a couple of days torecover (Jennings, 1909). Teaching andadministrative duties were burdens hewould gladly shed. When Flexner offeredto do what he could to get him a place atthe good salary of $5,000, Jennings wasreceptive. The final decision would restwith the Board of Trustees, however.

In the meantime, Edwin G. Conklin atPrinceton University offered Jennings a fullprofessorship there, which he thought hemight accept if the Rockefeller position didnot materialize. As he bided his timethrough the next few months, a hitchdeveloped the following autumn. Jennings

learned that one of the Rockefeller trust-ees, William Henry Welch of the JohnsHopkins Medical School, was opposed tothe idea of his going there, on the groundsthat it would not be good for Jennings him-self because it would mean too drastic ashift from his research interests in generalbiology (Jennings, 1909). Jennings did notagree, but thought that Welch as an "oldline pathologist" would take a narrowerview of the work at the Rockefeller Insti-tute than he or Flexner did. Welch sug-gested instead that if Jennings wanted toleave the university, a more suitable placewas the Carnegie Institution, where hecould keep on with the experimentalgenetics research he had started by thistime. As it turned out, Welch was also Pres-ident of the Executive Committee of theCarnegie Institution, a connection thatmade Jennings uneasy: "I am a little afraidthat the fact that Dr. Welch is strong onboth Boards is in danger of queering thewhole matter, although he is working allthe time in what he believes to be my inter-est" (Jennings, 1909).

The Rockefeller decision was delayedostensibly while the Carnegie Institutiontried to locate some money for a possibleposition for him. Little did Jennings sus-pect that Flexner and Welch had a biggerfish on the line by this time. While Jenningswas being steered toward the Carnegie, aseparate offer had already been made to amore eminent biologist, one who insistedon having the freedom to pursue theresearch he liked (Pauly, 1980). As thesenegotiations went on, Jennings remaineddangling. On a day in January in 1910 heopened his newspaper and learned why hewould not be hired (Jennings, 1910). Theinstitute would not pursue the tumorresearch; it would concentrate on prob-lems of general biology after all. But theman it wanted, and the man it had snared,was none other than Jacques Loeb.

Jennings turned back to Hopkins, whereBrooks's successor had still not beenappointed. During the interim, however,one of the faculty members in zoology hadbeen strongly urging the President of Hop-kins to appoint Thomas Hunt Morgan tothe position (Andrews, 1908). Morgan was

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H. S.JENNINGS AT JOHNS HOPKINS 809

a Hopkins Ph.D. and "was well acquaintedwith the ideals and conditions to be foundat the university." His research, just start-ing in genetics, promised to be in the fore-front of biology for the next few years.And, the man did not fail to point out,Morgan would fit in admirably, for he wasa "blend of two leading families," one fromKentucky and the other from Baltimore.The choice appealed to everyone exceptJennings. He explained that there had beena tacit agreement with Brooks that he wasto succeed him as head of the department;the President of the university reconsid-ered; and Jennings was made permanentdirector of the zoological laboratory in1910 (Sonneborn, 1975). The Carnegieplan had come to nothing by this time andthe Hopkins offer was good enough tocompete with Princeton. Jennings settledinto the "pleasantest university place in thecountry" and there he remained until hisretirement in 1938.

PHILOSOPHICAL BIOLOGIST

When Jennings succeeded Brooks in1910, the biology department had split intoseveral sections. The original physiologicalsection had branched off and remainedconnected with the medical school. Themorphological section had divided intozoology and botany, and in 1909 a newlaboratory in plant physiology had beencreated. Jennings encouraged this divisionbetween zoology and botany; at his requesthis title was simply Director of the Zoolog-ical Laboratory. He looked forward to anexpansion of the laboratory when the uni-versity extended its undergraduate pro-gram and acquired a new campus at Home-wood, which was built piecemeal fromabout 1907 on, three miles from the med-ical school. But the science laboratorieswere not completed as planned and whenthe zoology department transferred to thenew location in 1915-1916, it was tuckedinto the general academic building, Gil-man Hall, which had not been designed forthe sciences.

No sooner was the move accomplishedthan Jennings began to cast about for abetter place. He noticed a small stonehouse, the former residence of the keeper

of the estate, which would suit their needs.He approached the president of the uni-versity with a plan to renovate the housefor about 600 dollars, a reasonably modestsum (Jennings, 1916). President Goodnowwrote back that there was a "disinclina-tion" to use the house, the reason beingits proximity to the main street: it wouldattract the eye and the wrath of the anti-vivisectionists. Jennings assured Goodnowthat nothing unsavory would go on in thelab, but his request was denied. He stayedin Gilman Hall.

Jennings's first decade at Hopkins car-ried him through a time of profoundchange in American biology. The mostdramatic change was the creation of exper-imental genetics and along with many otherbiologists Jennings gravitated to the newscience. Shortly after his arrival at Hopkinshe shifted his research from the study ofbehavior to the genetics of protozoa anddevoted himself to intensive experimentalstudies of heredity in protozoa.

Evolutionary biology at the time wasawash in conflicting hypotheses about therole of natural selection, of the inheritanceof acquired characters, and of the newmutation theory in producing change(Provine, 1971; Mayr, 1980). Those whoadopted one explanation often did so byexcluding the alternatives, so that muta-tion theory, for instance, was seen as analternative to natural selection. Jennings'sexperiments on evolution in the laboratoryhelped to demonstrate that there was noincompatibility between Darwin's theoryand modern genetics, and that the inher-itance of acquired characters, though stillproblematic, was unlikely to be very impor-tant (Jennings, 1920).

Protozoa were surprisingly complicated,however, and despite his efforts to establishprotozoan genetics, he had to admit eventoward the end of his career that the fieldremained in a primitive state (Sonneborn,1975). The real advances in genetics wereto be found in the Drosophila research ofT. H. Morgan and his group at ColumbiaUniversity (Allen, 1978). Jennings, sooncaught up in the momentum of theseresearches, moved in the late 1910s awayfrom experimental genetics in protozoa to

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the mathematical analysis of the lineararrangement of chromosomes, using datafrom the Morgan school. Much to Mor-gan's satisfaction, Jennings was able to showmathematically that the hypothesis of theMorgan group that the genes werearranged in the chromosome in serial order"like the beads on a string," was compat-ible with what was found in experiments(Jennings, 1923; Sonneborn, 1975).

The chromosome hypothesis also gaveJennings some ammunition for philosoph-ical argument, for he felt that it demon-strated very clearly that an understandingof heredity depended on knowledge of thearrangement of the hereditary material, notjust on its chemical composition. Hebelieved strongly that it was the failure torecognize the importance of structuralarrangement that had led to some of themost serious mistakes of recent biology,mistakes exhibited both in the philosoph-ical excesses of vitalism and in the reduc-tionist tendencies of the physico-chemicalapproach to life.

Vitalism as a philosophical and scientificposition had been expounded since the1890s by Hans Driesch, a Germanembryologist who was led to a vitalist stanceby the realization that embryologicaldevelopment could not be reduced to a setof laws which governed all organisms(Driesch, 1908). Certain species developedone way; others another way. If there wereno physical or chemical principles whichcould unify these observations, thenanother force, or entelechy, which couldnot be understood in conventional physico-chemical terms, must be at work guidingdevelopment. More recently, attacks ongenetics had also taken the form of vital-istic arguments. Jennings was concernedabout the anti-experimental implicationsof these claims and his alternative philos-ophy, encapsulated in the phrase "radicallyexperimental analysis," argued for theelimination from science of anything whichwas beyond the reach of experiment (Jen-nings, 1912, 1913, 1914).

Reflecting in 1926 on the history ofrecent controversies in biology, Jenningssaw them as cautionary tales for biologists.Arguments about vitalism had really flared

up because biologists had expected to findconsensus in the wrong place. When theysaw that different organisms developedaccording to different patterns, some con-cluded that the explanation could only befound in the extra-physical world of vitalforce. Their mistake, according to Jen-nings, was in failing to see that the organicsystem was not uniform or simple, but fullof diversity. They had, in other words,failed to appreciate the importance ofstructural arrangement, or organization,in biology. The same materials, acted onby the same agents, would respond indiverse ways depending on how thosematerials were arranged (Jennings, 1926a).Moreover, diversity itself could only beaccounted for by the theory of evolution,which now resurfaced as the basic problemfor the biological experimenter: "Theproblem of evolution we have thrown outof the window and we have locked the door,but it returns at the keyhole" (Jennings,1926a, p. 102).

The science that was devoted to the studyof structure in biology was morphology.Morphology had flourished in the nine-teenth century, but at the turn of the twen-tieth century had grown disreputable partlybecause of its speculative elements. Simi-larities in form had been used to constructfanciful evolutionary trees; the new gen-eration of experimental biologists wantedno part of these fantasies. As Jenningsrecalled, morphology became the object ofan "epidemic phobia" as experimentalismtook hold. Jennings, however, saw no nec-essary opposition between morphology andexperimental biology. Like his colleagueT. H. Morgan, he recognized the need torefine morphological problems to rid themof the idealistic elements of German spec-ulative biology. But those who, in their zealfor experiment, forgot the importance ofthe study of form were losing the essenceof biological thinking.

He had no quarrel with the view thatknowledge of physics and chemistry wasimportant for biologists. The rapid growthof physiological chemistry that had beenunderway since the 1910s was clear evi-dence of the importance of setting biologyon a firm foundation of physics and chem-

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istry (Kohler, 1982). But in all this enthu-siasm for physics and chemistry, Jenningsfelt, something important was being lost:a sense of the diversity of life. The way tounderstand diversity, whether in behavior,in physiology, or in development, was byunderstanding structural arrangement,including the structure of the geneticmaterial. Structural arrangement wasimportant in the physical sciences also, ofcourse, but Jennings felt its importance hadbeen lost sight of as biologists had tried toadopt the methods of the physical sciences.

Jennings included genetics among thedisciplines which showed a modern exper-imental rigor, but which yet retained anawareness of the morphological problemunderlying biological processes. In thisrespect his thinking was very compatiblewith that of Morgan, whose work ingenetics Jennings admired. For both Mor-gan and Jennings, a commitment to Men-delism meant a commitment to the viewthat the hereditary factors were materialparticles which could be located on thechromosomes (Allen, 1983). The successesof the Morgan school in chromosome map-ping followed in part from this assumptionthat the problem involved a study of themorphology of the genetic material.Granted, genetic morphology had its spec-ulative side as well: the nature of the geneand its location continued to be contro-versial matters. The crucial thing was thatthe new genetic morphology and evolu-tionary biology be thoroughly experimen-tal. Moreover, as long as structuralarrangement was the inescapable given ofbiology, it would be difficult, if not impos-sible, to transfer conclusions directly fromthe inorganic world to the organic. Biologycould not be subsumed in the physical sci-ences.

Jennings returned to the subject of whatmade biology different as a science in anaddress delivered to the American Asso-ciation for the Advancement of Science atthe end of 1926 (Jennings, 1927). This timehe set his remarks in the context of emer-gent evolution, a doctrine which hadrecently been discussed by a number ofbiologists and philosophers (Morgan, 1927;Wheeler, 1939). The doctrine of emer-

gence rejected the idea that the universecould be reduced to problems of matterand motion. Instead, the idea of emer-gence was that at each level of organizationthe system as a whole acquired new fea-tures because the constituent parts them-selves acquired new properties, new modesof action, by becoming part of the system.This doctrine was not vitalistic: experi-ment remained the primary method of sci-ence and the only method of discovery.The doctrine of radical experimentalismand the doctrine of emergent evolutionwere for Jennings "obverse views of onedoctrine." But in the organized system theparts could not be analysed as though theywere isolated; they had to be understoodas participants in the whole system.

The biologist, by adopting this perspec-tive, at the same time broke free of thehold of the inorganic sciences on biology.As Jennings argued, results which appearedin the biological world and not in the inor-ganic did not have to be regarded as anom-alies and suppressed. The biologist did notneed to feel "a sense of criminality inspeaking of relations that are obvious inthe living, for the reason that they are notseen in the non-living." "Biology becomesa science in its own right—not throughrejection of the experimental method butthrough undeviating allegiance to it. Thedoctrine of emergent evolution is the Dec-laration of Independence for biological sci-ence" (Jennings, 1927, p. 22).

Within biology also, practical results fol-lowed from the principle of emergent evo-lution. Divergent results from differentorganisms would also not be seen as anom-alies, but as significant facts. Hence, "thepractice of facile generalization whichhoneycombs with error biological sciencewill lose its seductive charm." Nowhere hadfacile generalizations been more outra-geously displayed than in the case of thehuman species, as Jennings well knew. Theeugenics movement had for two decadesbeen propagandizing on the basis of scantyknowledge of heredity (Kevles, 1985). Inother areas of biology and psychology alsoit was common to find heroic extrapola-tions from the simplest organisms to humansociety. Loeb himself had advanced the

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mechanistic conception of life as the onlyone that could lead to an understanding ofthe basis of ethics, which he thought orig-inated in our inherited instincts, which werein turn molded and warped by the envi-ronment (Loeb, 1964, pp. 32-33). InLoeb's view the best science was that whichreduced everything, including mental pro-cesses, to simple laws. From knowledge ofthose laws, an understanding of humansocial behavior would follow. Loeb even-tually gave up these grandiose extrapola-tions, but his ideal of an essentially reduc-tionist science based on physics andchemistry remained his guiding vision(Pauly, 1980).

Jennings was keenly interested in thebiological basis of human nature (Jen-nings, 1930), but he was highly skepticalof the biologist's ability to pronounce onmatters of human conduct. Any such pro-nouncements could only follow intensivestudy of the human species, not just fromthe biological angle, but from the political,economic, and historical sides as well. Soci-ety, in other words, showed unique emer-gent properties which could not be com-pared with those in the rest of the animalworld. Therefore the doctrine of emer-gent evolution, in Jennings's pragmaticinterpretation, at once served to elevatebiology as a science in its own right, inde-pendent of the physical sciences, while italso restricted the biologist's claims to actas expert in human affairs.

Jennings was steering between theexcesses of mechanistic science, with itsreductionist philosophy, on the one side,and the quasi-religious ideas of vitalisticbiology on the other. In the process he wasarticulating and defending what we mightsimply call the biological point of view, whichhe shared with T. H. Morgan, against themodern physico-chemical approach in par-ticular. Jennings responded to the chal-lenges of mechanism and vitalism philo-sophically because he perceived scientificdifferences as having ideological roots. Hisfirst taste of controversy with Loeb taughthim that differences of opinion on scien-tific matters often reflected different phil-osophical views and even different ideasabout society and social progress. Jen-

nings's defense of biology reflected his ownideology as well, the ideology of progres-sive liberalism.

But there was another kind of challengewhich he faced, an institutional one, whichthese philosophical arguments did notexplicitly address, but which directlyaffected Jennings's ability to implement thekind of biological program he was defend-ing. To understand his position fully wehave to return to his zoological laboratoryat Johns Hopkins in the late 1910s.

ENEMIES OF PROMISE

Work in the department was partly bro-ken off during the war, as the numbers ofmale graduate students dropped and someof the faculty became involved in war work.Jennings himself worked as a statistician inHerbert Hoover's Food Administrationprogram, in a department headed by Ray-mond Pearl. Pearl had been Jennings's for-mer student both as an undergraduate andgraduate student, and had followed Jen-nings's own path very closely, eventuallybecoming a geneticist at the Maine Agri-cultural Experiment Station (Jennings,1943). After the war, Pearl moved to JohnsHopkins, to the new School of Hygiene andPublic Health, where his success at pro-moting his own brand of biology wouldhave unfortunate repercussions on his for-mer mentor Jennings.

Student enrollment picked up after thewar, but the zoological faculty numberedonly four, despite Jennings's efforts toincrease administrative support for zool-ogy. By 1925 the four faculty with the helpof a research associate were training 18graduate students in zoology. Space wastighter than ever, with investigators forcedto work in the museum storage room, thebiological library, and the greenhouse(Jennings, 1925). The makeshift labora-tories in Gilman Hall were drafty and illequipped, and the salaries were so low thatthe faculty complained they could hardlymeet expenses.

The university as a whole could hardlykeep up with the expansion in the studentbody since the war. Johns Hopkins, likeother institutions, had been hit by the pre-vailing trends in American education: more

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people seeking higher education, anincrease in students seeking vocationaltraining in college, and a higher commu-nity demand for various extension services.The extended services at Hopkins includedgraduate schools of advanced non-profes-sional studies, undergraduate schools ofengineering and business economics,courses for teachers, summer courses, andcourses for social and technical workers andstudents of business. The change in theuniversity by the mid-twenties was amus-ingly captured by H. L. Mencken (1925)in his Baltimore Sun column, whichdescribed the degeneration of Hopkins into"a factory for turning out radio engineers,bond salesmen, newspaper reporters,advertisement writers and county super-intendents of schools." He contrasted Gil-man's boldness of vision with the subse-quent erosion of the University's purposeas it grew: "Soon the beautiful and hollowshell at Homewood began to arise, a mon-ument, not to Gilman, but to Kiwanis. Itwas dedicated to Service. Its groves echoedthe giggles of country schoolmarms, thehearty whoops of nascent realtors, auto-mobile accessories dealers, certified publicaccountants, auctioneers. Scholars keptaway."

Whether Jennings agreed with Menck-en's elitist views or not, he certainly feltthat the need for a new biological labora-tory, both to accommodate the increasednumbers of students and to provideresearch facilities, was now desperate. Amajor infusion of money was required toset the three biological departments—zoology, botany, and plant physiology—oncourse. Jennings estimated the cost at onemillion dollars for a laboratory (whichwould include psychology), plus an endow-ment of one and a half million to securethe future of the departments (Anony-mous, 1925). This was a far cry from the$600 he had requested a decade ago, butin 1925 he had reason to hope that thelaboratory might now be built, for the uni-versity was about to launch a major fund-raising campaign in connection with thecelebrations of its fiftieth anniversary.

Equally promising was the news that theuniversity was about to launch a radical

experiment in its educational policy, onedesigned to bring it back to the researchideal of its early years. The New Plan, asit was called, was unveiled by PresidentGoodnow early in 1925 (Goodnow, 1925).It called for the conversion of the univer-sity into a purely research institution,granting only master's and doctoraldegrees. The university would stop pro-viding the elementary collegiate instruc-tion given in the first two years; studentswould be admitted for graduate work afterthey had completed two years of collegeelsewhere. Features of college life not con-nected to research, such as organized ath-letics and "college activities," would beplayed down. The university would not tryto cover all fields, but would specialize inthose subjects in which it was strongest.Goodnow capped his outline with a stirringappeal to the hero of Bunyan's Pilgrim'sProgress, Christian, who paid no heed tothe dire warnings of Timorous and Mis-trust, but boldly went past the roaring lionsto get to the Celestial City. And so at Hop-kins, "we shall have the satisfaction ofknowing that we are again trying to reachthe Celestial City which stands now as itstood in Bunyan's vision and as it will everstand 'upon a mighty hill.'" H. L. Menckentoo was optimistic: if and when Goodnow'sreform was put into effect, he declared,"the Johns Hopkins is rescued from Kiwanisand headed toward the interstellar spaces"(Mencken, 1925).

To put the reform into effect was nosmall matter. The loss of tuition and statesupport required a huge endowment toprovide this income. Six million dollars ofendowment were needed just to start theprogram, with up to ten million dollars tocover the cost of all changes (French, 1946).Then there was the problem of the uni-versity's relations with the community, forBaltimoreans expected to send their sonsto Hopkins. The university had both amoral and a legal obligation to the Stateof Maryland to admit high school gradu-ates of the city and state. One graduate,from an old Maryland family, put the casefor preserving good community relationsin an especially interesting light. The uni-versity should move to strengthen its role

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in the community, he argued, now that Bal-timoreans had forgotten all about itsfounder, the businessman Johns Hopkins:"The generation which he robbed is nowabout all gone, and the present generationdoes not know, or at least does not giveheed to, his doings. The University is atpresent for the first time in a position toget the favor of Marylanders. If it shouldbreak up the undergraduate school, itwould only bring itself hatred" (Brown,1925).

Abraham Flexner from the GeneralEducation Board of the Rockefeller Foun-dation raised another difficulty. The Hop-kins faculty was not, in his opinion, emi-nent enough to attract students to such aprogram (Flexner, 1925a). Certainly itcould be done in principle: in Pasadena,for instance, Robert A. Millikan and ArthurA. Noyes were successfully drawing stu-dents to the California Institute of Tech-nology, but their leadership was excep-tional (Kevles, 1978; Kargon, 1982). TheHopkins faculty would have to be strength-ened to ensure the same success there. Buthe did believe the experiment was worthtrying, if the community could be made tosee the value of basic research over its nar-row local needs (Flexner, 19256).

Discussions went on through the year.The plan was finally implemented in thefall of 1926, but in a vastly reduced form.The undergraduate college was nottouched, but nineteen students wereadmitted for advanced work. The facultywere generally in favor of the plan andmany believed that Goodnow would revealnews of a forthcoming endowment at theanniversary banquet that October. Thebanquet was given over to stirring speechesapplauding Johns Hopkins's decision tobecome a first-rate research institution:"back to Gilman" was the general theme.E. G. Conklin (1926), who had done hisdoctoral work under W. K. Brooks, invokedthe research spirit of the early biologicallaboratory at Hopkins. Jennings hadprompted him with some suggestions aboutwhat it would be cheering to hear him say.Conklin dutifully urged that Hopkins ded-icate itself to the search for truth, and thatit recognize the importance of its faculty

for that search. Money had to go into menrather than into show and those men hadto be free of petty restraints and time-wast-ing activities. Graduate students should alsobe let free to do their best work in theirown way. This had been Brooks's method,a demonstration of the law of survival ofthe fittest. There would be no place in aresearch institution for the current maniafor masses of undergraduates; nor shouldthe university think it must be a leader inathletics or "college spirit." Only researchmattered: if the university stood faithful tothis ideal, then the needed aid from phil-anthropic organizations would surely come.

The other speeches were in the samevein, but the speakers perhaps realized thefutility of their gestures, for Goodnow hadalready addressed the group and had saidnothing of an endowment. In fact, the fund-raising campaign had been a disappoint-ment. At the celebrations, Jennings learnedfrom Conklin the rumor that the GeneralEducation Board had backed down becausethey feared the university was going intothe plan half-heartedly, as indeed it was(Jennings, 19266). The plan had alreadyfaltered badly, although serious discussionof it continued until 1930, when it wasfinally dropped. The modified versionwhich the university had tried to imple-ment had in the end attracted only a hand-ful of students.

Jennings was disheartened to see the planfail through lack of commitment, but hestill hoped to get some independent fund-ing from the Rockefeller Foundation, ifnot for a new laboratory, then at least forthe immediate needs of his department.Even here his path was beset with obstacles,for there was strong competition for thesefunds from within the university itself. Bio-logical research was being done at theSchool of Medicine, the School of Hygieneand Public Health, and the Carnegie Lab-oratory of Embryology, which was alsolocated at the medical school campus. Butthe most serious competition came fromJennings's former student, Raymond Pearl,who had obtained a large five-year grantfrom the foundation in 1925, to set up anInstitute for Biological Research, whichgave him the freedom to pursue his studies

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in genetics, physiology, and human biologyindependently of the rest of the university(Kingsland, 1984). Jennings meanwhile gotnot a penny and felt keenly that Pearl'sinstitute was drawing off all the founda-tion's funds for biological research. Thevery title of Pearl's institute suggested thatit was the center of biology at the univer-sity.

By 1929, however, things suddenlylooked bright. Pearl announced he hadaccepted an appointment at Harvard Uni-versity, which was considering a reorgan-ization of its biological program to developthe field of human biology. Jennings imme-diately suggested to the president of Hop-kins that Pearl's institute be transferredto Homewood and that Jennings beannounced as its new director. He appliedanew to the Rockefeller Foundation forthe long-sought funding of his laboratory.

But Pearl had not quite left yet. Beforethe Harvard Board of Overseers had achance to ratify Pearl's appointment, hebecame embroiled in a scandal over someresearch he was doing, involving the rela-tionship between tuberculosis and cancerincidence, where he had made some criti-cal errors in the analysis of his data. Theaffair unfolded over the summer of 1929,as various departments at Harvard werestirred to protest Pearl's appointment(Kingsland, 1985, pp. 90-92). In the endthe Board of Overseers rejected his nom-ination and Pearl turned in his defeat backto Johns Hopkins. Jennings realized thathis own plans would now have to be com-pletely recast.

The university at this stage decided toapply for a Rockefeller grant which wouldjointly cover Pearl's laboratory and thethree biology departments at Homewood.The space problem had fortunately beensolved by the zoological laboratory takingover rooms vacated by the mathematicsdepartment, so that funds were needed onlyfor operating expenses. When the grantwas finally awarded in 1930, however, Jen-nings noted that over three-fifths of it wentto Pearl (for Pearl depended on the grantfor most of his income), leaving two-fifthsto be shared among the other laboratories.This was not the worst of it. The grant

extended over ten years, decreasing by afixed amount that was to be picked up bythe university. But with the Depressionprolonged into the thirties, the universitycould not afford to make up its portion.Pearl's income, however, remained steadythrough these years: the three otherdepartments bore the brunt of the annualdecreases in the grant. Five full professors,five associates and instructors, ten assis-tants, and about thirty graduate studentsat Homewood were receiving less from thegrant than one professor, one associateprofessor, a handful of assistants, andalmost no students at the School of Hygiene(Rockefeller Foundation, 1938). This wasthe condition that prevailed at Jennings'sretirement from the university in 1938.

CONCLUSION

Through much of his career, Jenningsfought for his vision of biology as an auton-omous science devoted to the study ofdiversity and evolutionary process. Per-ceiving the challenges to biology, espe-cially from the physico-chemical methodsof modern physiology, he responded withphilosophical arguments. But the success-ful program builder and strategist in the1920s was more likely to be a skillful man-ager than a philosopher. Jennings was nei-ther a manager nor a businessman, and hecould hardly compete with those, such asLoeb and Pearl, who were more aggres-sively self-promoting in their relations withthe major funding bodies.

Even more importantly, Jennings did nothave the connections with medical sciencewhich would have helped him to gain thesupport of the philanthropic foundations.Modern American biology was increas-ingly dominated by medicine in the 20thcentury. Where a closer union of biologyand chemistry, or biology and physics, wasbeing urged, it was usually in a medicalcontext, with the object of advancing pureresearch for medical goals (Forbes, 1920).Even though Loeb had been given the free-dom to do the research he liked, the appli-cation of that research was firmly in thehands of Simon Flexner and the Rocke-feller Institute. The disciplinary vigor ofbiochemistry which Jennings noted in the

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early century was the result of a successfulsymbiotic relationship between biochem-ists and medical institutions, as RobertKohler (1982) has documented. Programsin general biology, on the other hand,tended to grow only where there was littleor no competition from medical schools,as Philip Pauly (1984) has shown in a recentcomparative study.

In the early years at Hopkins there hadbeen no competition from medicine, forthe medical school's construction had beendelayed until 1893. The department ofbiology had flourished. Later on, Jenningshad had to compete with both schools ofmedicine and of public health and with thepower wielded by such members of themedical elite as W. H. Welch. Americanbiology was being shaped by and directedtoward the utilitarian goals of medical sci-ence. The contemplative approach of thebiological philosopher had little place inthis world.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Information on Jennings and theDepartment of Biology was obtained fromthe H. S.Jennings papers, American Phil-osophical Society, Philadelphia (abbrevi-ated APS), and the Office of the Presidentpapers in the Ferdinand Hamburger Jr.Archives of the Johns Hopkins University(abbrev. JHU archives). Research was sup-ported by National Science Foundationgrant SES-8509078 in the history and phi-losophy of science program.

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herbert spencer jennings at johns hopkins, 1906-19381

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