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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



iticians who get possession of high gov- 

 ernment offices are apt to be especially 

 incompetent in all matters of science ; 

 and, consequently, they must, as a class, 

 be the worst judges of the technical 

 labors of scientific men. "What, tben, 

 is to be done ? The politicians impeach 

 a scientific department for inefficiency, 

 and the scientific men reply by a vir- 

 tual protest against their capacity to 

 judge of the conduct they condemn. 

 In tbis they are right ; but is it there- 

 fore inferable that the scientists are to be 

 left to themselves, and exempted from 

 scrutiny and criticism in the manage- 

 ment of their affairs ? This assuredly 

 will not do; for if scientific men are 

 qualified on one side, they are disquali- 

 fied on another and very important side. 

 Like other men, they are self-seeking, 

 ambitious, and have their personal ends 

 to gain. Can we assume that morally 

 they are any better than their neigh- 

 bors; or that, if they get possession of 

 place and power, they will not use and 

 pervert them to the promotion of their 

 selfish objects ? It is to be hoped that 

 in the future science will become so de- 

 veloped as to react upon character and 

 give us men morally as well as intel- 

 lectually superior ; but we are far from 

 any such happy result as yet. Govern- 

 ment has boundless wealth at com- 

 mand ; it is a mighty patron. Every- 

 body is tempted to get some private 

 advantage through its influence, and 

 scientific men are no exception to 

 their fellow-citizens in exemplifying 

 the general passion, and in desiring to 

 get a share of government patronage. 

 The " scientific politician " has made 

 his appearance in "Washington, and the 

 political element in him will dominate 

 the scientific. That he will be a lobby- 

 ist and intriguer, and become skilled in 

 the art of getting favors and appropria- 

 tions from Congress, is but to say that 

 he will work according to his oppor- 

 tunities, objects, and the nature of the 

 materials to be manipulated. An un- 

 supervised and irresponsible scientific 



department at "Washington would be 

 run in the interest of its sharpest 

 managers, would be filled with sine- 

 cures, give the least results at the great- 

 est expense, while these results would 

 be aggravated by the sense of exemp- 

 tion from criticism. 



"We draw a different conclusion from 

 the fact that scientific men are the best 

 judges of their own work, and the poli- 

 ticians who have got the national offices 

 the poorest judges of it. "We infer that 

 duties which those officers can not per- 

 form in a proper manner they should 

 not undertake. The policy of extend- 

 ing what may be called Government 

 science at "Washington is a bad one; 

 whatever is indispensable must be tol- 

 erated, but with this qualification the 

 less we have of it the better. The 

 Coast Survey is a work of undoubted 

 national necessity. Its investigations 

 are essential to the national defense; 

 it was begun long ago, in a small way, 

 with no reference to any Government 

 policy respecting the promotion of sci- 

 ence; and it has been systematically 

 prosecuted as a matter of unquestionable 

 public importance. But the modern ex- 

 tensions of Government science, as the 

 Department of Agriculture, for exam- 

 ple, stand upon no such ground. They 

 have not been called into existence by 

 any special or urgent needs of the state, 

 or to subserve any legitimate function 

 of Government; but they have come 

 through the agency of scheming and 

 ambitious scientific men who sought 

 official power for the advancement of 

 their own objects. Under such inspi- 

 ration the national Government has 

 entered into rivalry with the private 

 investigators of the country to promote 

 research, develop resources, and accu- 

 mulate useful knowledge for the people. 

 Millions of money are now spent on in- 

 vestigations of all kinds, on collections 

 and surveys, buildings, apparatus, sala- 

 ries, and publications made at extrava- 

 gant cost, and which are without that 

 warrant of necessity which should be 



