ANNUAL ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. XLIII 
them original investigators; most of them men whose chief, 
though not only, pleasure is study. A few of them have important 
administrative duties, and are brought into close relations with the 
heads of Departments and with Congress. Upon men in such posi- 
tions a double demand is made, and they are subject to criticism 
from two very different standpoints. On the one hand are the sci- 
entists, calling for investigations which shall increase knowledge 
without special reference to utility, and sometimes asking that em- 
ployment be given to a particular scientist on the ground that the 
work to which he wishes to devote himself is of no known use, and 
therefore will not support him. On the other hand is the demand 
from the business men’s point of view—that they shall show prac- 
tical results; that in demands for appropriations from the public 
funds they shall demonstrate that the use to be made of such appro- 
priations is for the public good, and that their accounts shall show 
that the money has been properly expended—“ properly,’ not 
merely in the sense of usefully, but also in the legal sense—in the 
sense which was meant by Congress in granting the funds. Nay, 
more, they must consider not only the intentions of Congress but 
the opinions of the accounting officers of the Treasury, the comp- 
troller and auditor, and their clerks, and not rely solely on their 
own interpretation of the statutes, if they would work to the best 
advantage, and not have life made a perpetual burden and vexation 
of spirit. 
There is a tendency on the part of business men and lawyers to 
the belief that scientific men are not good organizers or administra- 
tors, and should be kept in leading strings; that it is unwise to 
trust them with the expenditure of, or the accounting for, money, 
and that the precise direction in which they are to investigate should 
be pointed out to them. In other words, that they should be made 
problem-solving machines as far as possible. 
When we reflect on the number of persons who, like Mark Twain’s 
cat, feel that they are “nearly lightning on superintending;” on the 
desire for power and authority, which is almost universal, the ten- 
dency to this opinion is not to be wondered at. Moreover, as re- 
gards the man of science, there is some reason for it in the very 
terms by which he is defined, the characteristics for which he is 
chiefly eulogized. 
The typical man of science is, in fact, in many cases an abnor- 
mity, just as a great poet, a great painter, or a great musician is 
