154 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLV. No. 1155 



tween the system of advisers and tlie ex- 

 periment stations and the colleges of agri- 

 culture are very intimate. It looks as 

 though in them the machinery at least for 

 improved and reliable food production is 

 fairly well assured. 



POLICE WOEK 



However, there are always perils in the 

 most promising journeys into unexplored 

 territory or in sailings upon uncharted 

 waters. 



The experiment stations are new, and 

 fortunately whatever else may be said they 

 have now the confidence of the farmers, 

 who have come generally to feel that a new 

 force is in affairs and that a new help to 

 fanning has appeared in that indefinite 

 thing we call service. 



Now there is always a temptation to put 

 sacred things to ungodly uses, and the ex- 

 periment stations have not escaped the 

 operation of the general law. Science has 

 shown that a certain disease or pest can be 

 controlled, and it has pointed out the 

 method of doing it. What more natural 

 than that the public should take the sta- 

 tions at their word, and say "Very well, 

 here is an appropriation; go ahead, make 

 your serums and your rules to put the 

 thing into practise ; hale citizens into court ; 

 fine or imprison them if necessary, but 

 make it work"? 



Now this is hasty logic and bad practise. 

 The experiment stations are organized for 

 research, not for administration. Again, it 

 is unseemly that a creature of the public 

 like a scientific institution should appear 

 against citizens in the courts and fine or 

 commit them to jail. Besides, the experi- 

 ment stations have no militia with which to 

 suppress resistance, which in such cases as 

 foot and mouth disease is as ever present 

 as time and as explosive as a volcano. 



Besides, the object of the scientist is re- 

 search, and how shall the experiment sta- 



tion carry on further investigation after 

 new truth if it must stop short and en- 

 force the accumulating mass of revised 

 practise. It will soon be so cluttered up 

 under such a policy that new work is im- 

 possible and most of its funds and labora- 

 tory space wiU be used for the purpose of 

 "regulatory work," when further prog- 

 ress is practically impossible, a condition 

 that has already overtaken certain of the 

 experiment stations and is aU too rapidly 

 threatening others. 



The only safety either to the research 

 worker, the station or the public is for the 

 investigator to verify his discoveries, point 

 out the method of their practical use, and 

 go on after other truths, leaving the public 

 to make such use of the new knowledge as 

 it deems wise and relying upon the usual 

 police power of the state for its enforce- 

 ment, if enforcement is necessary. In no 

 other way can research be protected ; in no 

 other way can the stations discharge the 

 public service for which they were organ- 

 ized; and in no other way can the confi- 

 dence of the public be indefinitely enjoyed. 



THE CULT OP ADMINISTRATION 



The rate and the intensity with which ad- 

 ministration under one pretext or another 

 is coming to dominate research in this 

 country, especially along agricultural lines, 

 is little short of appalling to any candid ob- 

 server who takes stock of the situation and 

 who has the courage of his convictions. 



Many if not most investigators in agri- 

 culture are now required to begin a piece of 

 research work by drafting a fonnal project 

 in which the materials and methods are 

 definitely described, the cost specified, and 

 the expected results foretold. The method 

 is akin to a new turn of a kaleidoscope, or 

 the setting of a new combination on a com- 

 plicated machine which, after aU the new 

 adjustments of pins, screws and levers have 

 been carefully made, is expected to go 



