Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/866

844 made in the interest of economy and efficiency. It is alleged that several of the bureaus now duplicate one another's work, partly through sheer want of system and partly through not knowing what one another are doing. The writer, Dr. Charles W. Dabney, Jr., thinks it is amazing that the Government has accomplished so much excellent scientific work through the agency of so unscientific an organization. The remedy he prescribes is "a general coordination of the scientific work of the Government"; but just what would be the effect of such a co-ordination he does not describe further than to hint that it would save money.

On the other hand, a writer in the same journal, who signs "Washingtonian," does not believe in Dr. Dabney's scheme at all. He inclines to the opinion that "consolidation would diminish results, impair efficiency, and do away to some degree with individual responsibility." He thinks that, as things are at present, practical objects are better kept in view and more effectually pursued than they would be under a department that had the whole field of scientific investigation for its province. "The chemical laboratories," says Washingtonian, "being consolidated, the chief chemist would be a greater man than any of his colleagues. No director of a bureau could control his own chemical work. With demands for particular jobs from several bureaus on hand it would be wholly uncertain when any of them would be finished. Complaints would be met by playing off one against another. Responsibility, and to a large extent efficiency, would be lost."

In this dispute we are disposed to hold with Washingtonian. A general department of science would in our opinion be altogether too vague in its objects, and too little governed by a sense of the practical, to render satisfactory service to the public. It would be almost impossible to prevent it from wandering off into purely theoretical work and into all the fads of specialist research, and in a very few years taking up a position and assuming a character never contemplated when it was established. We hold, moreover, that it would be quite worth while to move the previous question: whether, already, the Government does not engage in various lines of scientific activity which might perfectly well be left to private effort. Government work has this peculiarity, that it is never done; just as "infant industries" have the peculiarity, of never outgrowing the tariff bottle.If a geological survey is undertaken, it must go on ad infinitum. If a private company had a piece of land which they wanted surveyed geologically or otherwise, and employed certain persons judged to be competent to take the work in hand, they would expect them to finish it, and that within a reasonable time. They would not expect them to camp everlastingly on the ground, and never hint at any finality to their alleged labors. With Government work it is different; it goes on for its own sake, or for the sake of the salaries connected with it; and the rustic voter who expects to see it some day completed will have an experience like that of the more ancient rustic, who stood by the river side expecting to see the stream run itself dry.

What we want, of course, far more than a national department of science, is an intelligent and honest Congress, out of which can be formed intelligent and honest committees capable of criticising the work of government, and intent on reducing it within the limits indicated by considerations of public utility. It