ROSA: SCIENTIFIC WORK OF THE GOVERNMENT 367 



THE CHEMICAL INDUSTRIES 



25. Rubber, leather, paints and the chemical industries 

 generally, include a vast number of products which should be 

 standardized and described in intelligent specifications. In 

 many cases the product can be materially improved with little 

 or no expense, if available information is utilized. Often it is 

 the difficulty in securing information and not reluctance to use 

 it that explains the poor quality. There are great numbers of 

 small manufacturers who would avail themselves, if they could, 

 of information to improve their product, but who cannot afford 

 to engage in expensive research to get the information. The 

 government could supply thousands of small manufacturers 

 with information on hundreds of subjects if an adequate staff 

 were made available to do the work, and this would be of direct 

 benefit to the public which pays the cost. This is cooperative 

 work of the most practical sort, and it has been done already in 

 enough cases to demonstrate how productive of good results it is. 



SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS 



26. The manufacture of scientific instruments has recently 

 come to be an important industry in this country. This is partly 

 owing to the greater use than formerly of scientific instruments 

 in the industries, and partly to the war which has largely reduced 

 the importation of scientific apparatus from abroad. An increased 

 protective tariff is proposed to encourage and protect American 

 manufacturers of such apparatus, but if there are no standards 

 of excellence set up and no adequate specifications or guarantees, 

 the purchaser will often be uncertain of what he is getting when 

 he buys such apparatus. The government would do well to 

 cooperate actively with the manufacturers and with scientific 

 and engineering societies in standardizing and describing scien- 

 tific apparatus, so that the manufacturer will know better the 

 properties and capabilities of his own output of apparatus, and the 

 purchaser will know how to select apparatus and whether he gets 

 what he orders. In other words scientific apparatus should be 

 scientifically described and intelligently used, and the govern- 



