THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 



191 



is with streets, sewers, parks and 

 docks; with schools, hospitals and 



public institutions: with water, light 

 and the means of transportation and 

 communication. But there are equally 

 sound reasons for keeping the govern- 

 ment of a state or nation free from 

 pclitics and conducting its affairs with 

 such skill and efficiency as are attain- 

 able. There are certain questions that 

 are quite outside the limits of such 

 seienee as we now have, for example, 

 the desirability of more or less cen- 

 tralization, paternalism, aristocracy, 

 war or religion. The people may 

 legitimately divide themselves into 

 parties on such lines. Science may be 

 unable to answer the question as to 

 whether the government should conduct 

 the postoffice, the express business or 

 the railways, but when the government 

 has undertaken to manage the mails, 

 it makes no more difference whether 

 the postmaster general is a republican 

 or a democrat, than whether he is a 

 catholic or a protestant. married or 

 single. It would be well if we could 

 separate those questions which must 

 for the present be settled by party gov- 

 ernment from those which should be 

 decided by expert knowledge, and if the 

 latter could be settled by men having 

 the necessary special training. And of 

 course nearly all the executive work of 

 the government should be done by ex- 

 perts, and a large part by those who 

 are technically men of science. 



The main questions before the first 

 session of the fifty-ninth congress were 

 concerned with the extension of federal 

 control by the regulation of interstate 

 commerce, and may be regarded as out- 

 side the scope of this journal. But the 

 decisions of the congress rested, or 

 should have rested, on statistical or 

 other scientific data. In the execution 

 of the laws relating to railway rates, 

 meat inspection and pure food, a large 

 number of trained scientific men will 

 be required. The removal of the tax 

 on alcohol which has ueen ' denatured ' 

 will have an important effect on the 



arts. While we should like to see the 

 decimal system of weights and meas- 

 ures or even a duodecimal system made 

 compulsory, it must be admitted that 

 technical opinion is so divided that the 

 house can scarcely be blamed for re- 

 jecting the measure. Of direct scien- 

 tific interest were the bills protecting 

 Niagara Falls, the Mariposa trees of 

 California and the antiquities on the 

 public lands. Although the main in- 

 crease in the appropriation for the De- 

 partment of Agriculture was for meat 

 inspection, its scientific work was 

 enlarged in several directions. The ap- 

 propriation for rebuilding the Military 

 Academy at West Point was increased 

 to $6,500,000. A lock canal at Panama 

 carried to the height of eighty-five feet 

 was decided on, and the sum of $42.- 

 500,000 was appropriated for the work. 



SCIENTIFIC ITEMS. 

 We record with regret the deaths of 

 Dr. Henry A. Ward, president of 

 Ward's Natural History Establishment 

 at Rochester, and Dr. Fritz Schaudinn, 

 recently appointed head of the para- 

 sitological department of the Institute 

 for Tropical Diseases of Hamburg and 

 well known for his work on the pro- 

 tozoa. 



The Ordre pour le Merite has been 

 conferred on Professor Robert Koch by 

 the German Emperor. — Dr. Ernst 

 Mach, of Vienna, has been awarded 

 the Bavarian Maximilian order for sci- 

 ence and art. — Professor Simon New- 

 comb has been elected a member of the 

 board of overseers of Harvard College. 

 —The Society of Arts has awarded its 

 Albert medal to Sir Joseph W. Swan, 

 F.R.S., ' for the important part he took 

 in the invention of the incandescent 

 electric lamp, and for his invention of 

 the carbon process of photographic 

 printing.' 



Axxouxcemext has been made of 

 the resignation of Dr. William T. 

 Harris, commissioner of education, and 

 of the nomination of his successor, 



