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To my mind, one of the most remarkable things I have seen in 

 this country is the working of the bureau of ethnology as part of the 

 general working of the Government department to which it belongs. 

 It is not for me, on this occasion, to describe the working of the 

 Smithsonian Institution, with its research and publications extend- 

 ing almost through the whole realm of science; nor to speak of the 

 services of that eminent investigator and organizer, Prof. Spencer 

 F. Baird. It is the department occupied with the science of man 

 of which I have experience; and I do not think that anywhere else 

 in the world such an official body of skilled anthropologists, each 

 knowing his own special work, and devoted to it, can be paralleled. 

 The bureau of ethnology is at present devoting itself especially to 

 the working-up of the United States, and to the American conti- 

 nent in general, but not neglecting other parts of the world. And 

 I must say that I have seen with the utmost interest the manner in 

 which the central organism of the bureau of ethnology is perform- 

 ing the functions of an amasser and collector of all that is worth 

 knowing; how Major Powell is not only a great explorer and worker 

 himself, but has the art of infusing his energy and enthusiastic spirit 

 through the branches of an institution which stands almost alone, 

 being, on the one hand, an institution doing the work of a scientific 

 society, and, on the other hand, an institution doing that work with 

 the power and leverage of a government department. If we talked 

 of working a government institution in England for the progress of 

 anthropology in the way in which it is being done here we should be 

 met with — silence, or a civil answer, but with no practical result ; 

 and any one venturing to make the suggestion might run the risk 

 of being classed with that large body described here as "cranks." 

 The only way in which the question can be settled, how far a gov- 

 ernment may take up scientific research as a part of its legitimate 

 functions, is by practical experiment; and somehow or other your 

 president is engaged in getting that experiment tried, with an 

 obvious success, which may have a great effect. If in future a prop- 

 osition to ask for more government aid for anthropology is met with 

 the reply that such ideas are fanatical, and that such schemes will 

 produce no good results, we have a very good rejoinder in Wash- 

 ington. The energy with which the Bureau of Ethnology works 

 throughout its distant ramifications has been a matter of great in- 

 terest. It is something like what one used to hear of the organiza- 

 tion of the Jesuits, with their central authority in a room in a Roman 



