Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 56.djvu/504

490 For the administration of large interests, involving the control of men and the building-up of great institutions, men of science have over and over again demonstrated their fitness. In the scientific societies of the world they have shown their capacity for organization, and in the management of schools and colleges their ability has often been proved. Among the presidents of universities and technical schools who have been drawn from the ranks of science I may mention Eliot, of Harvard; Gilman, of the Johns Hopkins; Drown, of Lehigh; Jordan, of the Leland Stanford; Chamberlin, of Wisconsin; Morton, of the Stevens Institute; and Mendenhall, of the Worcester Polytechnic. The Institute of Technology in Boston has been directed successively by Rogers, Runkle, Walker, and Crafts; the Columbia School of Mines was built up by a group of scientific workers, aided by President Barnard; and the list might be lengthened almost indefinitely. Have these men fallen below the average of their fellows? Have they not shown at least as high administrative ability as has been found elsewhere? The mere statement of their names is a sufficient answer, and renders argument unnecessary. With them the scientific training has not been a disqualification, nor even a handicap; it has rather been to their advantage, for to it they owe much of the insight, the power to grasp great problems intelligently, the ability to interpret evidence, and the tendency to prompt and decisive action, without which successful administration is impossible.

Again, consider the scientific institutions of the world, the museums and observatories, and the various governmental organizations in which science is recognized. In our own country, the Smithsonian Institution and National Museum were built up by Henry and Baird, in spite of great and varied difficulties; the Coast Survey was created by Hassler and Bache; and the Geological Survey was developed by a group of men among whom Hayden, King, and Powell were pioneers. The last-named organization has been controlled from the beginning by men of science, and the Coast Survey has been weak only when under nonscientific management. The Commission of Fish and Fisheries owes its existence and a great part of its effectiveness to its creator, Baird; the Army Medical Museum and Library represents the executive genius of Billings; and in none of these institutions has partisan politics ever exerted an appreciable influence. No bureaus of the Government have been more wisely or more efficiently handled than those which men of science have controlled; in none have there been fewer errors or scandals; there is not one in which the essential purpose of its existence has been better fulfilled.

Instead, then, of excluding the scholar, the investigator, the