1919] EDITORIAL. 3 



suspension or abandonment of the line of work because it can not be 

 profitably carried on. Such a result may come from inability to 

 make relatively small advances in salary. A case in point is a sta- 

 tion which has had special apparatus constructed and installed at 

 much expense for an advanced line of investigation, but has been 

 obliged to let this equipment lie idle for two years and defer entering 

 upon the study because of the loss of its specialist in that line on 

 account of a matter of a few hundred dollars salary. The director 

 and the board were willing to make the advance and the specialist 

 was willing to remain for considerably less than offered elsewhere, 

 but limitations of the budget system blocked the way. 



One thing which is not always fully appreciated, even among 

 higher administrative officers, is that in the advanced grades of 

 investigation the result is an individual product. It is an outcome 

 of the ability, the insight, and the acumen of the man who is guiding 

 it. He acquires a knowledge of the problem, theories and ideas for 

 its study, and an understanding in interpreting the results which are 

 a part of himself and are not passed on to another. Investigators are 

 not interchangeable, as teachers may be or workers of lower grade. 

 Individuality is the prime essential to continuous research ; and a 

 large proportion of the real problems are now of the kind that are con- 

 tinuous over a considerable period, the study leading on from point 

 to point in the same general field. From the standpoint of both the 

 worker and the station a change is ordinarily disadvantageous, at 

 least temporarily, and there should be every- reasonable encourage- 

 ment and opportunity for assuring continuity and permanence. 



On the other hand, institutions may find their powers limited in 

 making changes believed to be in the interest of the station. In one 

 State an attempt at dismissal was followed by an appeal to the State 

 civil service commission, with a hearing participated in by counsel 

 for the discharged man, and a published report reflecting upon 

 the station and ordering reinstatement. This precipitated a situation 

 which has become a serious one for a research institution, leading to 

 appeals to the commission by employees not recommended for salary 

 increases, and even a resort to injunction proceedings to prevent the 

 station from carrying out its plan of organization. 



The inevitable effect upon the station of such a disturbance in its 

 administration, extending over nearly a year and not yet concluded, 

 can be imagined. It illustrates how far control may pass beyond the 

 governing board into the hands of other State agencies if there is 

 not a sympathetic appreciation of the difference between the condi- 

 tions and requirements of an experiment station and those of other 

 classes of public institutions. 



The above is an extreme case, for fortunately those stations affected 

 have generally been relieved from the strict operations of the State 



