September 15, 1916] 



SCIENCE 



385 



Beeea College announces a gift of $10,000 

 from the late James Talcott, of New York 

 City, received shortly before his death. This 

 gift was part of a total pledge for $40,000 for 

 the erection of a girls' dormitory, which will 

 be ready for occupancy on January 1. 



The New York School of Dental Hygiene 

 has become allied with the new Columbia Uni- 

 versity School of Dentistry and the College of 

 Physicians and Surgeons. The school will 

 open on September 27, classes being held in 

 the Vanderbilt Clinic. 



Irving H. Blake, A.M. (Brown, '12), in- 

 structor in the Oregon Agricultural College, 

 has been appointed instructor in the depart- 

 ment of zoology, Syracuse University. 



Me. Charles Colby, recently of the Peabody 

 College for Teachers, Nashville, Term., has 

 become instructor in geography at the Uni- 

 versity of Chicago. 



At the University of Chicago, Anton Julius 

 Carlson, of the department of physiology, and 

 Charles Manning Child, of the department of 

 zoology, have been promoted to professorships. 

 Lee Irving Knight, of the department of 

 botany, has been promoted to an assistant pro- 

 fessorship. New appointments are: Ernest 

 Watson Burgess, of Ohio State University, to 

 be assistant professor in the department of 

 sociology and anthropology; Professor Jean 

 Piccard, of the University of Lausanne, 

 Switzerland, to be assistant professor in the 

 department of chemistry, and Dr. W. B. 

 Sharpe and William E. Cary, to be instructors 

 in the department of hygiene and bacteriology. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE 



PRESIDENT WILSON'S SCIENTIFIC APPOINT- 

 MENTS 



The two articles in Science of August 25, 

 1916, on "Scientific Appointments under the 

 Government " and " President Wilson's Scien- 

 tific Appointments " are interesting and sug- 

 gestive, but not entirely convincing. They do 

 not fully cover the question; the writers were 

 apparently not familiar with a number of facts 

 which have a very important bearing upon the 



point at issue. In fairness to all concerned it 

 is necessary to call attention to a few scien- 

 tific appointments made by the Wilson admin- 

 istration about which the writers failed to en- 

 lighten the readers of Science and The Scien- 

 tific Monthly. 



In the first place, it has been generally 

 understood (and even claimed by some of the 

 parties interested) that the original adminis- 

 tration slate contemplated the appointment of 

 E. Lester Jones to the position of commis- 

 sioner of fisheries. That this slate was broken 

 is much to the credit of the American Society 

 of Naturalists and the American Society of 

 Zoologists. But what followed? The presi- 

 dent immediately appointed Mr. Jones deputy 

 commissioner of fisheries. That position, in 

 many respects, even more important to science 

 than that of the commissionership itself, and 

 which should have been filled only upon the 

 recommendation of the commissioner, was at 

 once filled by the appointment of Mr. Jones. 

 The commissioner of fisheries was not even 

 consulted. He was completely ignored by the 

 president and the secretary of commerce not 

 only in this case but in other important ap- 

 pointments in the bureau of fisheries, a few 

 of which may be mentioned. One of the first 

 was the appointment, without even consulting 

 the commissioner of fisheries, of a young man 

 as private secretary to the commissioner. It 

 would seem that the chief of an important 

 bureau should be permitted to select his own 

 private secretary, the position being so distinc- 

 tively personal and confidential. The young 

 man appointed was, it is understood, from the 

 home town of John H. Eothermel, at that 

 time a congressman from Pennsylvania and 

 chairman of a committee of the House that 

 had been for some years conducting certain 

 fur-seal hearings. The young man was neither 

 a stenographer nor a typewriter (it was said 

 he was a plumber). It was said at the time 

 (and there is every reason to believe it was 

 true) that he was appointed as a spy to keep 

 Eothermel and Henry W. Elliott informed as 

 to the commissioner's relations to fur-seal 

 matters, in which Eothermel at that time was 

 very active — so active, indeed, that at the next 



