March 2, 1917] 



SCIENCE 



207 



not only necessary by reason of the extent 

 and the complexity of the affairs of the 

 institution, but it should be regarded as a 

 fundamental principle of sound adminis- 

 tration. No one can follow the details of 

 all these varied affairs. A division of 

 labors is indispensable, and to the greatest 

 extent practicable the director of a depart- 

 ment of research should be encouraged to 

 be the autocrat of his departmental destiny. 

 But in so far as departments are granted 

 liberty of action it is an equally funda- 

 mental principle of administration that 

 they should assume corresponding responsi- 

 bilities. Autonomous freedom and recipro- 

 cal accountability are then, in brief, the 

 essentials of the theory under which the 

 departments of research have evolved. 



In consonance with the theory just indi- 

 cated and in conformity with the preced- 

 ent set a year ago, no attempt is made here 

 to furnish abstracts of the current de- 

 partmental reports. They give sufficiently 

 condensed summaries of departmental ac- 

 tivities and departmental progress. They 

 are, as a rule, highly technical papers and 

 difficult of adequate appreciation even by 

 those somewhat familiar with the subjects 

 considered. But this is not only just as it 

 should be, but it is inevitable if the in- 

 vestigations under way are worth making. 

 Our confidence in them must be founded in 

 large degree on the general principles re- 

 vealed in the advancement of science. 

 Great and admirable achievements were 

 attained by the ancients prior to the epoch 

 of recorded history; still greater achieve- 

 ments were attained by the Greeks, the 

 Arabs, and the moderns down to the epoch 

 of Galileo and Newton; while competent 

 judges have estimated that greater prog- 

 ress was secured in the nineteenth century 

 than during all previous history. It is 

 quite within conservative reason, there- 

 fore, to assume that if we continue to fol- 



low those principles, now grounded in 

 more than twenty centuries of repeatedly 

 verified experience, in the light of accumu- 

 lated and recorded knowledge, we may con- 

 fidently expect to achieve corresponding 

 further advances. 



The question is sometimes raised as to 

 how the efficiencies of investigators and of 

 departments of research are, or possibly 

 may be, estimated. Occasionally, also, there 

 seems to be entertained along with this 

 question the hypothesis that research is a 

 commodity and that money is the chief 

 agent in promoting its effective increase. 

 But the currently common meaning of effi- 

 ciency implied in this question and in this 

 hypothesis is too narrow for application 

 here. It applies rather to machines and to 

 aggregates of men working like machinery 

 for predetermined economic ends. In a 

 broader sense, however, the question of effi- 

 ciency of men and of organizations is 

 worthy of considerate attention. It is, in- 

 deed, in this inclusive sense, a question of 

 the greatest importance, especially in all 

 cooperative enterprises of communities and 

 states. But without going into these larger 

 aspects of the matter, it may be said that 

 the efficiencies of the. investigators and of 

 the departments of research of the institu- 

 tion are determined in the same way that 

 justification for the institution, as a whole, 

 is determined, namely, by the consensus of 

 competent opinion. In science, the work 

 of an individual is measured on its merits 

 and the work of an organization is weighed 

 in the same manner. Adequate tests and 

 standards for what is not fully known may 

 not be wisely set up in acts of administra- 

 tion. Severer tests and higher standards 

 are supplied automatically and relentlessly 

 by contemporary criticism and by the ver- 

 dicts of posterity. Hence, given a corps of 

 trained investigators, or an organization 

 of several such, the question of efficiency is 

 happily one which is decided for us mainly 



