ANNUAL ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. XLIX 
scientific work, it is quite legitimate and proper to thus make use 
of them. For example, it is desirable that this country should have 
such an organization of its Army and Navy as will permit of rapid 
expansion when the necessity arises, and this requires that more 
officers shall be educated and kept in the service than are needed for 
military and naval duty in time of peace. It has been the policy of 
the Government to employ some of these officers in work connected 
with other departments, and especially in work which requires 
such special training, scientific or administrative, or both, as such 
officers possess. ‘To this objections are raised, which may be summed 
up as follows: 
First, that such officers ought not to be given positions which 
_ would otherwise be filled by civilian scientists, because these places 
are more needed by the civilians as a means of earning subsistence, 
and because it tends to increase the competition for places and to 
’ lower salaries. Put in other words, the argument is that it is in- 
jurious to the interests of scientific men, taken as a body, that the 
Government should employ in investigations or work requiring 
special knowledge and skill men who have been educated and 
trained at its expense, and who are permanently employed and paid 
by it. This is analogous to the trades union and the anti-convict 
labor platforms. 
The second objection is that Army and Navy officers do not, asa 
rule, possess the scientific and technical knowledge to properly per- 
form duties lying outside of the sphere of the work for which they 
have been educated, and that they employ as subordinates really 
skilled scientific men, who make the plans and do most of the work, 
but do not receive proper credit for it. The reply to this is that it 
is a question of fact in each particular case, and that if the officer is 
able to select and employ good men to prepare the plans and to do 
the work, this in itself is a very good reason for giving him the 
duty of such selection and employment. 
A third objection is that when an officer of the Army or Navy is 
detailed for scientific or other special work the interests of this 
work and of the public are too often made subordinate to the 
interests of the naval or military service, more especially in the 
matter of change of station. For example, civil engineers object to 
the policy of placing river and harbor improvements in the hands 
of Army engineers, because one of the objects kept in view by the 
War Department in making details for this purpose is to vary the 
