16 CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON. 



commodity and that money is the chief agent in promoting its 

 effective increase. But the currently common meaning of 

 efficiency impUed in this question and in this hypothesis is too 

 narrow for appHcation here. It appUes rather to machines and 

 to aggregates of men working Hke machinery for predetermined 

 economic ends. In a broader sense, however, the question of 

 efficiency of men and of organizations is worthy of considerate 

 attention. It is, indeed, in this inclusive sense, a question of the 

 greatest importance, especiall}^ in all cooperative enterprises 

 of communities and states. But without going into these larger 

 aspects of the matter, it may be said that the efficiencies of the 

 investigators and of the departments of research of the Institu- 

 tion are determined in the same way that justification for the 

 Institution as a whole is determined, namely, by the consensus 

 of competent opinion. In science, the work of an individual is 

 measured on its merits and the work of an organization is weighed 

 in the same manner. Adequate tests and standards for what is 

 not fully known may not be wisely set up in acts of administra- 

 tion. Severer tests and higher standards are supplied auto- 

 matically and relentlessly by contemporary criticism and by the 

 verdicts of posterity. Hence, given a corps of trained investiga- 

 tors, or an organization of several such, the question of efficiency 

 is happily one which is decided for us mainly by those who are 

 alone qualified to render adequate judgment. 



Like all other branches of the Institution, the Division of 

 Research Associates has undergone a distinct evolution. Origi- 

 nally a division which gave rise to excessive and 

 Assodates. often unrealizable expectations, it has gradually 

 become shorn of its extrinsic appendages and 

 divested of its inheritances from occultism. In spite of these 

 omnipresent obstacles to progress and to efficiency, this division 

 has been highly productive from the beginning and continues to 

 be one of the most important agencies of the Institution for the 

 promotion of learning. The main reason for the noteworthy 

 success of this agency is very simple. It was stated in a recom- 

 mendation concerning research associateships, in the report of the 

 President for the year 1906, in these words: ''The limitation of 

 ehgibility for such positions to investigators of proved capacity 

 for and of proved opportunity for research." In the meantime, 



