A WEEKLY ILLUSTRATED JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 



" To the solid ground 

 Of Nature trusts the mind which builds for aye. 



-Wordsworth. 



THURSDAY, MARCH 3, 1921. 



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Science in the Civil Service. 



TWENTY years ago there were very few 

 scientific workers in the Civil Service ; 

 only one or two Departments existed where a 

 knowledge of science was a qualification for em- 

 ployment, and the higher Civil Service contained 

 few men who could claim even a nodding 

 acquaintance with scientific thought. The rapid 

 growth of the public Services within the last 

 fifteen years, the assimilation of public utility 

 companies into the State system, the creation of 

 entirely new Departments, and the realisation 

 forced upon Ministers by the war of the necessity 

 for scientific research in the nation's interest, 

 have resulted in the employment of thousand§ of 

 scientific and technical workers. Many of those 

 engaged temporarily during the war have re- 

 turned to the universities or other institutions 

 from which they were recruited, but a large 

 number remain and have been absorbed by various 

 State establishments. The position of such 

 NO. 2679, VOL. 107] 



workers demands our earnest attention. Preju- 

 dice dies hard, and there are still many men in 

 high administrative positions in the Civil Service 

 who hold science in contempt, and this feeling is 

 reflected in their attitude towards scientific 

 workers in their Departments. 



It is true, perhaps, that there is something 

 incompatible between science and the Civil Service 

 as it exists. There is a fierce egoism in science 

 which combats the merest semblance of submission 

 to the rigid tyranny of the administrative system. 

 The true scientific worker is impatient of the delay 

 which is the direct outcome of existing depart- 

 mental methods. He wants to get the results of 

 his labours to the outside waiting world imme- 

 diately ; he is restrained daily by the exasperating 

 regulations which prevent him from doing so. He 

 is for ever reacting against the repressive influ- 

 ence of his environment and the irritating inter- 

 ference of the lay oflficial disciplined to the system. 



However, scientific workers have been attracted 

 to the Civil Service in increasing numbers not so 

 much by the emoluments or the security of tenure 

 — the primary considerations of unprogressive 

 minds — as by the opportunities afforded by Govern- 

 ment service for the continuation of their re- 

 searches, which would otherwise have to be aban- 

 doned to take up teaching or commercial posts. 

 Some new Departments are the direct outcome of 

 their labours. But gradually their functions are 

 being usurped by the adept place-hunters in the ad- 

 ministration, and already some of the ablest men 

 of science, who have given signal proof of their 

 ability to' run their own Departments satisfactorily, 

 have been forced to relinquish administrative con- 

 trol to the lay officer. We can think of only two 

 remaining scientific heads of Departments who 

 rank with permanent assistant Secretaries of 



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