190 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



Beebe Lake and Triphammer Falls on the Edge of the Cornell Campus. 



LEGISLATION AND SCIENCE 



Government is becoming' more and 

 more an application of science. Poli- 

 tics are still largely a game and a 

 trade ; the kind of science at hand is 

 crude and is applied by the rule of 

 thumb. But if the proceedings of suc- 

 cessive parliaments or congresses are 

 reviewed, there is an evident tendency 

 for legislation to rest increasingly on 

 expert knowledge and to require con- 

 tinually greater scientific skill in its 

 execution. When the constitution of 

 the United States was written, the 

 threefold division of the functions of 



the government — legislative, executive 

 and judicial — was adequate. Now, 

 however, it may be urged that the 

 scientific or expert functions are co- 

 ordinate with the others. Laws may 

 be made by the congress, interpreted by 

 the courts and executed by the presi- 

 dent, but they should be based on scien- 

 tific investigations and carried out by 

 scientific experts. 



We are told that municipal govern- 

 ment should be divorced from politics, 

 and this is doubtless true. A munici- 

 pality is primarily a business or engi- 

 neering corporation. Its main concern 



