EDITORIAL 775 



The emasculated substitute for the foregoing discussion that 

 alone found place in Bulletin j8j, a page and a fraction in extent, 

 seems to have been so far robbed of effective suggestiveness that 

 it did not call forth even a mention by the author of the historical 

 statement of investigations bearing on the use of stone dust as a 

 deterrent in coal dust explosions given the public in Bulletin 425 

 recently issued under the same auspices as Bulletin 38 j, though the 

 unemasculated portions of the latter found suitable recognition, as 

 did also and naturally the important advances made in 1908 and 

 1909 in France, England, and other European countries in this 

 promising line of preventive endeavor, stimulated apparently, in 

 part at least, by the American disasters. 



It is of minor consequence that the bureau thus loses a part 

 of its own legitimate prestige in the new movement and falls 

 into line behind rather than abreast of its European 'coworkers, 

 for such relative position is mainly a matter of national pride, and 

 this is no doubt a form of vanity, hawever stimulative and whole- 

 some it may be; but it is not permissible to dismiss so lightly the 

 more vital fact that an aid toward that laborious education which 

 is prerequisite to a final practical success was thrown away by 

 cutting out or cutting down to an ineffectual minimum these 

 suggestions that sprang from one of the main lines of approach 

 attempted, even though the suggestions might be thought to over- 

 lap ground lying more directly in the path of some other line of 

 approach. The prerequisite educational work is at once scientific, 

 technical, practical, and popular, and will inevitably be slow because 

 of the human inertia to be overcome. It involves the growth of 

 scientific opinion, usually cautious and hesitant, the growth of 

 public opinion, usually inert and sluggish, the working assent of 

 laborers on whom new restraints must be laid, the concurrence of 

 managers on whom new cares are to be thrown, the co-operation 

 of owners on whom new expenses are to be imposed, the enlighten- 

 ment of legislators of whom new enactments are to be required, 

 and the inspiration of public officials on whom new duties are to 

 be placed. If the psychological moment for such education in 

 any of its phases is at hand, by reason of the shock of appalling 



