442 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



THE PEOGRESS OF SCIENCE. 



Criticism of the Government is a 

 cherished prerogative of a democratic 

 people. Shortcomings that would be re- 

 garded as inevitable in the conduct of a 

 private institution, when discovered un- 

 der Government control, are apt to be 

 the target of very free speech. We be- 

 lieve that the scientific work at Wash- 

 ington is, on the whole, carried on as 

 economically and efficiently as in our 

 endowed universities, but no human in- 

 stitution is perfect, and just now the 

 U. S. Naval Observatory is being sub- 

 jected to a good deal of criticism by the 

 astronomers of the country. There is a 

 general consensus of opinion that, while 

 researches and discoveries of the highest 

 order have been made at the Naval Ob- 

 servatory, there has been a lack of the 

 far-reaching and long-continued funda- 

 mental work which should be the chief 

 end of a national institution of this 

 character. It is also pretty generally 

 agreed that one chief difficulty is 

 the division of control, the Observatory 

 having for superintendent a line officer 

 of the Navy, with no knowledge of 

 astronomy and a scientific director 

 with no real authority. Last year 

 a board of visitors was appointed by 

 Secretary Long, consisting of the Hon. 

 William E. Chandler, the Hon. Alston 

 G. Dayton, Prof. E. C. Pickering, Prof. 

 George C. Comstock and Prof. George 

 E. Hale, who made a careful report, 

 their chief recommendation being that 

 the Observatory be under the control 

 of a permanent board of visitors, who 

 should prescribe the work to be under- 

 taken and fill vacancies on the staff, 

 the astronomers so appointed to be no 

 longer officers of the Navy. The naval 

 officer who happens to be superintend- 

 ent of the Observatory has just now 

 made a rather acrimonious reply to the 

 report of the board of visitors, calling 



its recommendations 'preposterous' and 

 'ridiculous,' and maintaining that the 

 work done at Washington is equal to 

 that of the Greenwich Observatory. 



It must be confessed that there is 

 small likelihood that the recommenda- 

 tions of the board of visitors will be car- 

 ried into effect. The naval officers at 

 Washington have great and well- 

 deserved influence, and they must be 

 persuaded either to consent to the trans- 

 fer of the Observatory to another de- 

 partment or else to conduct the institu- 

 tion under the Navy in the way that 

 will be most creditable to it and to the 

 country. We regard the latter alterna- 

 tive as the more feasible. There may 

 ultimately be a national department of 

 education and science with a secretary 

 in the cabinet, but the time for this 

 has not yet come. In the meanwhile 

 scientific work is distributed to different 

 departments, and the Department of 

 the Navy can conduct the Observatory, 

 as is the case in Great Britain and 

 France, as well as another department, 

 even though the work of the Observa- 

 tory and the Nautical Almanac are not 

 exclusively, and perhaps not chiefly, of 

 concern to the Navy. The stars — so long 

 as they are not annexed — may logically 

 belong to the department having to do 

 with foreign affairs, but in this world 

 logic is of less concern than making the 

 best of existing circumstances. What 

 we regard as essential is to convince the 

 Department and the officers of the Navy 

 that there should be a single head of the 

 Observatory, selected as the man most 

 competent by scientific attainments and 

 executive ability to administer the in- 

 stitution. The promotion of the officer 

 longest in the service to the scientific 

 directorship and his retirement at the 

 age of sixty-two years will certainly 



