32 CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON. 



tions and individuals to which, respectively, publications in the 

 varied departments concerned might be sent. This attempt has 

 developed certain baffling obstacles. Chief among these is the awk- 

 ward duty of discriminating between the persons and the institu- 

 tions which should and those which should not receive books gratis. 

 The officer called upon to decide must necessarily play the role fre- 

 quently of a dispenser of favors, and be thus subject to the charge 

 of favoritism. 



The practical questions raised by this matter are, first, Is the work 

 entailed worth what it costs ? And, secondly, Does such work advance 

 science ? My opinion is that both questions should be answered in 

 the negative ; and my suggestion is that a distribution of publica- 

 tions at once practicable, equitable, and effective may be attained by 

 offering all, of them for sale except those reserved for free assign- 

 ment to authors and to the leading libraries of the world. Publi- 

 cations thus distributed would be pretty certain to go where they 

 are needed, and they would thus also stand or fall by reason of their 

 merits or demerits, as the case may be. 



Precisely what relations the Carnegie Institution of Washington 



should sustain to the public is a question which does not admit 



a ready answer. Experience alone can disclose 



Relations of Institu- a CO mplete reply, since it must evolve with the 

 tion to the Public. r r J 



development of the Institution itself. Clearly, 



however, it must be regarded as a semi-public organization, some- 

 what similar to a university. More exactly, it may be likened to a 

 university in which there are no students. 



Obviously the Institution ought to sustain close relations with 

 universities, since they are now the chief centers of research ; and, 

 within the limits permitted by mutual independence, those rela- 

 tions should be cooperative, to the end that time and effort may be 

 conserved. Similar relations should obtain, likewise, between the 

 Institution and learned societies. But the possible methods of 

 effective cooperation remain, essentially, to be discovered. 



Much less obvious, though hardly less essential of provisional 

 definition, are the relations which the Institution should sustain to 

 the larger, non-academic world. One of the favorable signs of the 

 times is seen in the intelligent interest taken in the affairs of the 

 Institution by this larger world. In spite of a widely prevalent 

 tendency to anticipate the marvelous and the spectacular from 

 scientific investigations, and thus to expect too much, if not the 

 impossible, there is manifest a very generally just appreciation of 



