XLVIII PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 
officials; others, by its own officers. To this last class belong those 
branches of scientific investigation, or the means for promoting 
them, which require long-continued labor and expenditure on a 
uniform plan—such as the work of the Government Observatory, 
of the Government surveys, of the collection of the statistics which 
are so much needed for legislative guidance, and in which we are at 
present so deficient, the formation of museums and libraries, and so 
forth. 
Considering the plans and operations of these Government insti- 
tutions from the point of view of the scientific public, it is highly 
desirable that they should contribute to the advancement of abstract 
science, as well as to fhe special practical ends for which they have 
been instituted; but from the point of view of the legislator, who 
has the responsibility of granting the funds for their support, the 
practical results should receive the chief consideration, and there- 
fore they should be the chief consideration on the part of those who 
are to administer these trusts. It must be borne in mind that while 
the average legislator is,in many cases, not qualified to judge a 
priori as to what practical results may be expected from a given 
plan for scientific work, he is, nevertheless, the court which is to 
decide the question according to the best evidence which he can get, 
or, rather, which is brought before him, and it is no unimportant 
part of the duty of those who are experts in these matters to fur- 
nish such evidence. 
But in saying that practical results should be the chief considera- 
tion of the Government and of its legislative and administrative 
agents it is not meant that these should be the only considerations. 
In the carrying out of any extensive piece of work which involves 
the collection of data, experimental inquiry, or the application of 
scientific results under new conditions there is more or less oppor- 
tunity to increase knowledge at the same time and with compara- 
tively little increased cost. Such opportunity should be taken ad- 
vantage of, and is also a proper subsidiary reason for adopting one 
plan of work in preference to another, or for selecting for appoint- 
ment persons qualified not only to do the particular work which is 
the main object, but also for other allied work of a more purely 
scientific character. 
On the same principle it seems to me proper and expedient that 
when permanent Government employees have at times not enough 
to do in their own departments, and can be usefully employed in 
