August 16, 1912] 



SCIENCE 



195 



For biology, there are available the 

 National Herbarium, the Biological Sur- 

 vey, the Commission of Fish and Fisheries, 

 the botanical division of the Department 

 of Agriculture, the National Museum and 

 other departments. 



Passing now to applied science: Almost 

 every phase of advanced engineering work 

 is illustrated by some division of the gov- 

 ernment. The material which would be 

 especially available is that found in the 

 War and Navy Departments, the Bureau 

 of Mines, the Coast and Geodetic Survey, 

 the Division of Architecture, the Hydro- 

 graphic OiSce and the Land Office. 



For agriculture, practically the whole 

 department, except administration, is de- 

 voted either to the advancement of the 

 science or to the dissemination of practical 

 information. This great department has 

 an appropriation for 1911 of more than 

 $20,000,000, the larger part of which went 

 for scientific and extension work. An 

 enumeration of the divisions of the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture shows how wide is the 

 scope of this work — the bureaus of Animal 

 Husbandry, Plant Industry, Weather, For- 

 est Service, Chemistry, Soils, Entomology 

 and Biology. 



While the Department of Agriculture 

 has by far the largest appropriation for 

 scientific work, the appropriations for sci- 

 entific purposes in other divisions vary for 

 each from more than $100,000 to more than 

 $1,000,000. 



While it would not be easy to give an 

 accurate statement regarding the amount 

 of money which is available in the various 

 departments at Washington for investiga- 

 tion and for the tools of investigation — 

 apparatus and books — it is safe to say that 

 the total amounts to many millions of dol- 

 lars per annum; or put in another way 

 more than ten times as much as any single 



university or institution in the country for 

 this purpose. 



The vast collections of books in the Con- 

 gressional Library and the large special 

 libraries in the various departments, espe- 

 cially those of the Geological Survey, the 

 Surgeon-General's Office, and the State 

 Department, cover a greater number of 

 fields of human knowledge with an ap- 

 proach to completeness than exists elsewhere 

 in this country. These libraries are ad- 

 mirably administered. Expert assistants 

 are available, so that the material on any 

 given subject is readily secured. Not only 

 so, but special privileges are granted in the 

 reading rooms and in the stacks to qualified 

 students. The facilities in these respects 

 are incomparably beyond those of any li- 

 brary in other countries. It is safe to say 

 that the collections of books in the govern- 

 ment libraries at Washington could have an 

 efficiency ten times as great as they now 

 have at a small additional cost. 



Manning the scientific bureaus and divi- 

 sions are a scientific staff many times larger 

 than in the largest university in the coun- 

 try. It is this amazing wealth of men and 

 material at Washington that should be 

 available for the production of scholars and 

 investigators along many lines. 



THE DEMAND FOR IMMEDIATE RESULTS 



At the present time, unfortunately, the 

 demands for immediate results by the gov- 

 ernment compel the great staff to give by 

 far the larger part of their energy to special 

 problems with reference to practical ends. 

 The rich materials from the larger point of 

 view of the advancement of science are in 

 large measure neglected. 



LARGE SCIENTIFIC RESULTS OBTAINABLE 



If in each of the bureaus and depart- 

 ments mentioned there were advanced stu- 

 dents working on the materials there exist- 



