698 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



quaintance with the public service of 

 the country is not thoroughly familiar 

 with the official in the last year or so of 

 his terra, looking forward to removal 

 and too profoundly discouraged to throw 

 any zeal into his work, or to form any 

 plans for putting things around him into 

 better shape? We have seen him and 

 know whereof we speak, nor will it be 

 devised that the type abounds in the 

 country to-day. As to plans for the 

 future, the simple knowledge that his 

 successor in oiBce will want to do things 

 in his own way, and will lack the ex- 

 perience necessary to the appreciation 

 of arrangements based on experience, 

 would alone dispose the retiring official 

 to live a kind of hand-to-mouth exist- 

 ence till his change came. 



Even as we write this article we no- 

 tice by the dispatches from Washington 

 that the excellent appointment made by 

 the last administration of Prof. T. C. 

 Mendenhall to the superintendence of 

 the Coast Survey is in danger of being 

 canceled in the interest of a Democratic 

 aspirant to the office. There does not 

 appear to be any pretense that Prof. 

 Mendenhall is not in all respects suited 

 to the office he fills, or that he has not 

 already rendered very valuable service 

 in it. It is stated, indeed, in journals 

 not unfavorable to the present adminis- 

 tration that he has been and is most 

 efficient, and that under his management 

 the survey is doing better work than 

 ever before ; and yet the wolves are 

 howling round him, and the impression 

 is gaining ground that the wolves are to 

 be satisfied. Now, if the public would 

 only reflect a little on what this means 

 and what it costs, we think there would 

 be a more serious revolt against the 

 subordination of civil administration to 

 party politics than this country has wit- 

 nessed yet. We either want good, faith- 

 ful, and intelligent service or we do not. 

 If we do, then we must also want the 

 means to the desired end ; and an im- 

 portant part of the means will be a se- 

 cure tenure of office for capable and 



faithful public servants. If we are in- 

 dilfercnt as to the service we get, and 

 wish to keep all the more important 

 offices as rewards for partisan service, 

 let us avow it distinctly and cease to be 

 surprised when officeholders show that 

 they understand why they were appoint- 

 ed and make the public interest as sec- 

 ondary in their own calculations as it 

 was in that of those wbo gave them their 

 positions. Of course, to avow this would 

 be to accept a very low place in the 

 scale of civilized nations, but if we can 

 not screw our public virtue up to any 

 higher pitch, let us at least honestly ac- 

 knowledge where we stand. 



A POSSIBLE REFORM. 



The saying that " all is for the bet 

 in the best possible of worlds " is one 

 which does not at every moment come 

 home to ns with conviction. It some- 

 times seems as if many things went 

 unnecessarily awry, as if evil results 

 were being incurred in many quarters 

 through simple carelessness and indif- 

 ference to the conditions of well-be- 

 ing. It is difficult, for example, to be 

 quite satisfied with the general effects 

 of popular education, or with the fruits 

 which have as yet been reaped from 

 the diffusion of scientific knowledge. 

 If we ask whether the popular press ex- 

 hibits a higher intellectual stamp than 

 it did twenty or thirty years ago, the 

 answer will not be altogether reas- 

 suring. It is within about thirty years 

 that most of the devices now used by 

 the press for taking the strain off the 

 attention of lazy readers have been 

 introduced ; and what a development 

 there has been within the same period 

 in the ignoble industry of purveying 

 and tricking out in all the adornments 

 of newspaper rhetoric a kind of news 

 for which the simplest considerations 

 of public interest would prescribe the 

 briefest and driest treatment, it is quite 

 needless to declare. 



We have noticed with pleasure lately 



