874 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVIII. No. 729 



maintenance of efficient school systems and 

 otherwise promote the cause of education 

 throughout the country." This purpose 

 in no way conflicts with the educational 

 work of the states, but may be made of 

 great advantage to the states by giving 

 them the fullest, most accurate, and hence 

 the most helpful information and sug- 

 gestion regarding the best educational 

 systems. The nation, through its broader 

 field of activities, its wider opportunity 

 for obtaining information from all the 

 states and from foreign countries, is able 

 to do that which not even the richest states 

 can do, and with the distinct additional 

 advantage that the information thus ob- 

 tained is used for the immediate benefit of 

 all our people. 



With the limited means hitherto pro- 

 vided the Bureau of Education has ren- 

 dered efficient service, but the congress has 

 neglected to adequately supply the bureau 

 with means to meet the educational growth 

 of the country. The appropriations for 

 the general work of the bureau, outside 

 education in Alaska, for the year 1909 are 

 but $87,500— an amount less than they 

 were ten years ago, and some of the im- 

 portant items in these appropriations are 

 less than they were thirty years ago. It is 

 an inexcusable waste of public money to 

 appropriate an amount which is so inade- 

 quate as to make it impossible properly 

 to do the work authorized, and it is unfair 

 to the great educational interests of the 

 country to deprive them of the value of the 

 results which can be obtained by proper 

 appropriations. 



I earnestly recommend that this unfor- 

 tunate state of affairs as regards the 

 national education office be remedied by 

 adequate appropriations. This recommen- 

 dation is urged by the representatives of 

 our common schools and great state uni- 

 versities and the leading educators, who all 

 unite in requesting favorable consideration 



and action by the congress upon this sub- 

 ject. 



I strongly urge that the request of the 

 director of the census in connection with 

 the decennial work so soon to be begun, be 

 complied with, and that the appointments 

 to the census force be placed under the 

 civil-service law, waiving the geographical 

 requirements as requested by the director 

 of the census. The supervisors and enu- 

 merators should not be appointed under 

 the civil-service law, for the reasons given 

 by the director. I commend to the con- 

 gress the careful consideration of the ad- 

 mirable report of the director of the 

 census, and I trust that his recommenda- 

 tions will be adopted and immediate ac- 

 tion thereon taken. 



It is highly advisable that there should 

 be intelligent action on the part of the na- 

 tion on the question of preserving the 

 health of the country. Through the prac- 

 tical extermination in San Francisco of 

 disease-bearing rodents our country has 

 thus far escaped the bubonic plague. This 

 is but one of the many achievements of 

 American health officers ; and it shows 

 what can be accomplished with a better 

 organization than at present exists. The 

 dangers to public health from food adul- 

 teration and from many other sources, such 

 as the menace to the physical, mental and 

 moral development of children from child 

 labor, should be met and overcome. There 

 are numerous diseases, which are now 

 known to be preventable, which are, never- 

 theless, not prevented. The recent Inter- 

 national Congress on Tuberculosis has 

 made us painfully aware of the inadequacy 

 of American public health legislation. 



This nation can not afford to lag behind 

 in the world-wide battle now being waged 

 by^U civilized people with the microscopic 

 foes of mankind, nor ought we longer to 

 ignore the reproach that this government 

 takes more pains to protect the lives of 



