Because of the costliness of maintaining and breeding the monkeys and apes, it is especially desirable that the several kinds of research mentioned above should be conducted. Indeed, it would seem inexcusably wasteful to attempt to maintain a primate or anthropoid station for psychological observations alone, or for any other narrowly limited biological inquiry.
Furthermore, the station should be permanent, since for many kinds of work it would be essential to have intimate knowledge of the life history and descent of an individual. With the lower primates, a generation might be obtained in from two to five years; with the higher, not more frequently, probably, than from ten to fifteen years. It therefore seems not improbable that the value of the work done in such a station would continue to increase for many years and would not reach its maximum short of fifty or even one hundred years.
A staff of several highly trained and experienced biologists would be needed. The following organization is suggested as desirable, although, as indicated below, not necessarily essential in the beginning: (1) An expert especially interested in the problems of behavior, psychology, and sociology, with keen appreciation of practical as well as of theoretical problems; (2) an assistant trained especially in comparative physiology; (3) an expert in genetics and experimental zoology; (4) an assistant with training and interests in comparative anatomy, histology, and embryology; (5) an expert in experimental medicine, who could conduct and direct studies of the diseases of man as well as of the lower primates and of measures for their control; (6) an assistant trained especially in pathology and neurology.
To this scientific staff of six highly trained individuals there should be added a business manager, a clerical force of three individuals, a skilled mechanician, a carpenter, and at least four laborers.
The annual expenditures of an institute with such a working staff, would in southern California, approximate fifty thousand dollars. It would therefore be necessary that it have an endowment of approximately one million dollars.
In the absence of this foundation it would, of course, be possible to make a reasonably satisfactory beginning on the work which has been outlined in the following less expensive manner. A working plant might be established, on ground rented or purchased at a low figure, for about ten thousand dollars; the salary of a director, assistants, a clerical helper, and combined mechanic and laborer might be estimated at the same figure; the cost of animals and of maintenance of the plant would approximate five thousand dollars. Thus, we should obtain as an estimate of the expenditures for the first year twenty-five thousand dollars. Without expansion, the work might be conducted during the second year for fifteen thousand dollars, and subsequently it might be curtailed or expanded, resources permitting, according as results achieved and in prospect justified.
An institute established on such a modest basis as this still might render largely important scientific service through its own research and through organized cooperation with other existing research establishments. Thus, for example, supposing that behavioristic, psychological, sociological, and genetic inquiries were conducted in the institute itself, animals might be supplied on a mutually satisfactory basis to institutes for experimental medicine, for physiological research, and for anatomical studies. Under such conditions, it is conceivable that extremely economical and good use might be made of all the available primate materials. But it is not improbable that even coöperative research would prove on the whole more profitable, except possibly in the case of morphological work, if investigators could conduct their studies in the institute itself rather than in distant laboratories. In any event, the idea of coöperation should be prominent in connection with the organization of a research station for the study of the primates. For thus, evidently, scientific achievement in connection with these important types of animal might be vastly increased over what would be possible in a single relatively small institution with a limited and necessarily specialized staff of workers.
Despite the fact that biologists generally recognize the importance of the work under consideration and are eager to have it done, it is perfectly certain that we shall accomplish nothing unless we devote ourselves confidently, determinedly and unitedly, with faith, vision, and enthusiasm, to the realization of a definite plan. Our vision is clear,—if we are to gather and place at the service of mankind adequate comparative knowledge of the life of the primates and if we are to make this possible harvest of scientific results count for human betterment, we must bend all our efforts to the establishment of a station or institute for research.