170 PEACE ESTABLISHMENTS 



ous defender of the status quo to point to more than one 

 name of a military man thus employed that has risen, during 

 the past fifty years, even so high as the grade of mediocrity; 

 and certainly no one single name could be adduced to range 

 above the line of mediocrity. The excepted name will be no 

 mystery to persons who have given attention to the matter. 

 Here no mention of it shall be made so that any number of 

 military civilians, each rating himself at his own value, may 

 assume the compliment as personal. 



Reflecting upon the duties of a chief of the laboratory 

 department, and bringing them successively under considera- 

 tion, it would be difficult for the most strenuous advocate 

 of things as they are to adduce a rational argument in de- 

 fence of the practice of devolving them on a military man, 

 receiving military as well as civilian pay; though wholly pre- 

 vented, owing to the very tenure of his civilian office, from 

 performing military duties. Placed in a situation involving 

 the need of pronouncing authoritatively on propositions of 

 chemistry, of mechanism, and what is of no small moment 

 in a manufacturing establishment on the cost of operations, 

 the chief of the laboratory department should, were he to 

 discharge the functions allotted to him with self-intelligence, 

 not reflected learning, possess a store of deep and varied 

 knowledge not fairly to be expected of any one man. The 

 fact is, that what is called the laboratory department, involving 

 details of chemistry, mechanism, pyrotechnic art, and mate- 

 rial economy, must necessarily depend upon the thoughts of 

 many individual heads and the labours of many individual 

 hands. The responsibility of action, of doing, must neces- 

 sarily rest with specialty men ; chemists for the chemistry, 

 mechanicians for the mechanism, and so on for the rest. As 

 for the chief of the department for such a chief there of 

 course must be his functions should be limited to the con- 

 dition of seeing done the thing ordered to be done. To this 

 end what need of a military man, receiving double pay, de- 



