NATURE 



[March 3, 1921 



State — only two, that is, who can be assured 

 that their schemes will not be mutilated by a non- 

 scientific officer before going- through the per- 

 manent Secretary to the appropriate Minister. 

 The semi-official apology for this remarkable state 

 of affairs is somewhat disingenuous. It is urged 

 that the administrative machine is so complex 

 that only those with long experience are com- 

 petent to work it. If this be the true explanation 

 of the subordination of the man of science to the 

 lay official, it is high time the machinery of 

 our Government Departments was overhauled. 

 Ministers responsible for scientific Departments 

 should realise that there is a growing class-con- 

 sciousness among the younger men of science, 

 and real resentment felt against the intrusion of 

 lay officials into their proper sphere of activities. 

 Such intrusion means duplication of work. It is 

 worthy of note that in one Department where the 

 lay element has been subordinated to the scientific 

 staff a pre-war staff of more than a hundred has 

 been reduced to eighty-two, although the work 

 of the Department has greatly increased in the 

 meantime. 



The present system presents yet a further fault 

 which must be. remedied. The administrative 

 head of a Department, the lay official, has 

 authority to select the heads of scientific Depart- 

 ments under his immediate control. Being without 

 the necessary qualification to judge of the scien- 

 tific experience of a scientific worker, it follows 

 that he must, to a large extent, rely upon the 

 judgment of the retiring officer or of other scien- 

 tific workers of his own choosing. In neither case 

 does it follow that the best man available is 

 chosen. We suggest that some machinery should 

 be put into motion whereby the State could be 

 reasonably assured of the high calibre of its scien- 

 tific officers. Their selection might, for example, 

 be entrusted to ad hoc committees of scientific 

 experts appointed by outside scientific bodies at 

 the request of the Government. 



An inter-departmental comparison of the grad- 

 ing and salary scales of scientific workers in the 

 Civil Service would reveal glaring anomalies, but 

 it would occupy too much space in Nature. In no 

 case do the status, pay, and prospects of promotion 

 of scientific workers compare favourably with 

 those which obtain in the higher clerical grades. 

 Leaving out of consideration the conditions of 

 service of medical men, the scheme lately adopted 

 for scientific workers in the Fisheries Division of 

 the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries is the 

 most favourable in the Service. A comparison 

 NO. 2679, VOL. 107] 



between this scheme and that in force for the 

 higher clerical grades is given below :• — 



Higher Division Clerks. 

 (Administrative Class.) 



Salary. 



£ £ 



Grade I. i post 1000-1200 



,, II. 2 posts 700- 900 



., III. 4 ,, 500- 700 



,, IV. 4 ,, 200- 500 



Scientific Workers. 

 Salary. 



£ £ 



1 post 1000 



2 posts 650-750 

 5 „ 450-650 



I ^ , , 200-450 



(All the above posts carry with them Civil Service bonuses 

 in force.) 



Such disparities of pay and prospects must re- 

 act unfavourably against the recruitment of the 

 best scientific workers to the ranks of Govern- 

 ment officers. The best men will be attracted 

 to the administrative class and be lost to science. 

 Last year the Civil Service National Whitley 

 Council published a report on the organisation 

 of the Civil Service in which a comprehensive 

 scheme was put forward for the clerical classes. 

 After considerable delay a technical committee of 

 the same council has been entrusted with the task 

 of preparing a scheme for the scientific and tech- 

 nical classes. In the meantime the issue has been 

 prejudicially affected by the varying schemes put 

 forward by different Departments. There is no 

 apparent reason for the inordinate delay in setting 

 up the technical committee. It would have been 

 more satisfactory to deal with all classes of Civil 

 Servants in one report, like that on the United 

 States Civil Service described in last week's issue 

 of Nature. 



A Great Giver. 



Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie. Pp. xii-i-385. 

 (London: Constable and Co., Ltd., 1920.) 

 255. net. 



THE life-histories of remarkable men always 

 have interest and value. Few are more fascin- 

 ating than that of Andrew Carnegie, who began 

 his business career as a telegraph messenger boy 

 at two and a half dollars a week, and step by 

 step, through many trials and triumphs, became 

 the great steel-master, built up a colossal in- 

 dustry, amassed an enormous fortune, and then 

 deliberately and systematically gave away the 

 whole of it for the enlightenment and betterment 

 of mankind. No doubt the element of chance has 

 some part in such great success as that of Car- 

 negie. But it is only a subordinate part. This 

 autobiography enables us to see clearly enough 

 that it was " character " inborn and nurtured by 

 parents— sturdy and high-principled, though 

 brought by the vicissitudes of business to great 

 poverty,, even to actual hunger— which deter- 

 mined Carnegie's career. Character made him 



