90 
might make this request and urge it strenu- 
ously and incessantly and with an ability 
which few other men possess. The scien- 
tific men of the country might urge it. 
Organizations of many different characters 
might petition Congress for it. But the 
men who best know the truth about the 
present conditions, the scientific employees 
of the National Museum, may say no word. 
The National Zoological Park is naturally 
by no means as important an institution as 
the National Museum, since it is concerned 
with but one branch of science, but it falls 
as far short of what it should be as does 
the National Museum, and for the same 
reasons. Double the means and a force of 
zoologists are its important needs. This 
institution should naturally be a branch of 
the National Museum, but the National 
Museum as it should be and as it will be is 
too great a branch of Government to be 
controlled by the Smithsonian Institution. 
It should have its independent organi- 
zation; it should have its responsible di- 
rector who will spend his winter days 
laboring with Congress for appropriations 
and his nights planning broad lines of de- 
velopment. The Smithsonian Institution 
has done a great and good work, but it 
should not be given control of great national 
institutions like the ideal national museum. 
Infinitely better would it be were the 
Smithsonian Institution attached to the 
National Museum as one of its compo- 
nent parts. The Smithsonian has played 
its réle with the Museum. It officiated at 
its birth and nursed it through its child- 
hood; but the youth is now cramped. It 
must grow. It must burst the Smithsonian 
cage and stretch out its own appealing 
hands directly to Congress. 
The U. 8. Department of Agriculture is 
the first of the Government bureaus which 
does economic zoological work. Here as in 
the National Museum the men are under- 
paid, but the facilities for work are vastly 
SCIENCE. 
[N.S. Von. XIII. No. 316. 
better. Government appreciates more read- 
ily work which promises immediate eco- 
nomic results and hence money for such 
work is more easily gained. Scientific men 
in the Department of Agriculture refuse 
positions offered elsewhere at higher salaries, 
on account of these better facilities. Good 
research work and initiative in investigation ~ 
are encouraged. Nothing could be more 
ideally perfect than the relation between 
the present head of the Department of 
Agriculture and his scientific corps. Four 
years ago he announced his policy in this 
regard in conversation with one of his 
scientific chiefs in the following words: ‘I 
am here to facilitate your work, not to dic- 
tate to you. Make your plans, conduct 
your investigations, and I will help you 
with all my strength, but I shall hold you 
responsible for results.” Scientific men 
should honor James Wilson for the intro- 
duction of this novel principle in the ad- 
ministration of a Government scientific 
bureau. The good, sound, progressive 
scientific work now being done by his corps 
is everywhere commended, and I am proud 
to be connected with such an organization. 
New laboratory buildings are needed here, 
but there is no fear that they will not come 
in the immediate future. 
The U. S. Commission of Fish and Fish- 
eries deals with a single aspect of zoology 
and with a single industry. Just why 
scientific men are chosen as the administra- 
tive heads of the U. 8. Geological Survey 
and the U. 8. Coast and Geodetic Survey 
and not, since the days of Baird, for the Fish 
Commission is one of the mysteries of 
Government. Nearly four years ago this 
Society did the creditable thing in passing 
resolutions and sending them to Washing- 
ton in the hands of Professor Osborn, pro- 
testing against the appointment of any 
other than a scientific man as the director 
of this important branch of applied scien- 
tific work. The present incumbent of the 
