FEBRUARY 8, 1901.] 
of the operations of his bureau during the offi- 
cial year 1899-1900, exhibits a state of affairs, 
in a vitally important department of public 
service, which must intensely interest, and 
at the same time alarm, every patriotic citi- 
zen. 
The report includes a statement of the appro- 
priations, and, in detail, the expenditures, of the 
branch of that departmental organization which 
is entrusted with the employment of two and 
a half to three millions of dollars annually in 
the design, construction, repair and mainte- 
nance of the naval machinery of our whole 
fleet. It gives an outline of the work in hand 
and an account of that performed during the 
past fiscal year, details of the inspection of 
contract work, and of the conduct and results 
of trial trips of new vessels in the Navy and of 
old craft repaired. It considers the character, 
numbers and efficiency of the personnel of the 
engineer department of the Bureau and of the 
fleet, the effect of recent and of proposed 
changes, and especially of such as affect the 
organization of the Navy Department and the 
crews of our vessels. 
This Bureau has expended in the year re- 
ported upon over $2,500,000, of which about 
one-half represents costs of labor and one-half 
expenditures for materials. In addition to ex- 
tensive work in the designing of new machinery, 
the Bureau is compelled to examine and report 
upon several thousands of detail drawings sub- 
mitted by contractors. Some conception of 
the extent and importance of this work may be 
obtained when it is known that, for a single 
ship, the Kearsarge, about 600 drawings were 
made of approved constructions and an un- 
counted number of proposed variations or ex- 
panded details. Even small craft, like the tor- 
pedo-boats, require almost as much work, 
though on a smaller scale, as they have nearly 
as many working parts as the largest vessels. 
There are seventy vessels under construction, 
or about to be contracted for. For all this 
work, and for the operations of the fleet, large 
numbers of engineer and constructing experts 
are needed; but, meanwhile, the number avail- 
able, which has for years past been entirely in- 
adequate, is constantly being reduced by re- 
tirement, death and resignation; no proper 
SCIENCE. 225 
arrangements having been made for its mainte- 
nance. 
Where, for example, about twenty-five in- 
spectors are needed, fifteen are to-day com- 
pelled to do the work as best they can, with 
evident risk to the efficiency of the service ; 
where about thirty officers are needed at the 
Navy yards and stations, fourteen carry the 
burden, with similar risks to the service. ‘The 
present force of engineer-officers is everywhere 
overtaxed,’ but there is no way provided by 
which to relieve these officers or to add to their 
numbers, in a proper manner, the needed ad- 
ditional expert and experienced officers, pos- 
sessed, as they should be, of an ample scientific 
and technical training and varied earlier ex- 
perience. The ideal preparation is obviously 
some such preliminary general and special 
scientific education as is now, as a matter of 
course, presupposed in civil life, a professional 
apprenticeship and later experience in actual 
work of design and construction, and oppor- 
tunities to exhibit that capacity for scientific 
work and for the management of productive 
organizations which, only, insures professional 
success, alike, in public and in private business. 
In fact, the tendency seems to be, in this as in 
so many other branches of the public service, 
to permit the most important affairs to drift 
into the hands of incompetents or, at best, of 
amateurs, personally clever, often, but entirely 
unequal to the conduct of affairs demanding 
special education, special experience, and na- 
tive talent properly cultivated and developed 
by the common and essential process of evolu- , 
tion under the unsparing system of selection 
which obtains in a career of any sort in every- 
day life. 
The Chief of Bureau protests, for example, 
against a proposed consolidation of the long- 
established bureaus of the Navy Department, 
in which a branch of the work of the service, 
as mechanical engineering, naval construction 
or navigation, is entrusted to a body of experts 
in that branch, presided over by a selected 
expert-chief detailed from the list of most ex- 
perienced, talented and distinguished officers 
in the service. This must result, as is pointed 
out very clearly and convincingly, in either the 
introduction, as a general supervising officer, 
