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SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVI. No. 408. 



which many of us expected. For science 

 in these days has so many branches that 

 the Carnegie funds will be able to increase 

 — as far as funds can — the yearly scientific 

 activity, as Professor Cattell estimates, by 

 only about one per cent. There are, roughly 

 speaking, about thirty main departments of 

 scientific work, and computing the income 

 of the Institutioh at $300,000, the 

 share of each department could hardly 

 equal $10,000 a year. Moreover there is 

 the important question of expense of ad- 

 ministration to be considered. Some have 

 even suggested that a central organization 

 be amply housed, and at considerable ex- 

 pense. But I for one fail to see that such 

 an outlay would be for the greatest good 

 of the scientific community. It would be 

 rather, a delectable than an all-important 

 thing to have a well-built and splendidly 

 equipped Carnegie headquarters in Wash- 

 ington, with a corps of high-salaried officials 

 to give public lectures and to supervise 

 select laboratories— at an expense of at 

 least half the income of the institution. The 

 main benefit in such a plan would, it seems 

 to me, be too nearly local and individual to 

 prove in best accord with the highest pur- 

 poses of benefiting science. On the one 

 hand the officials, chosen for eminence after 

 they have done their major work, would, 

 before many years, become quasi-pen- 

 sioners, and unless they were removed ruth- 

 lessly, say by an age limit, they would soon 

 cause the Institution to lose touch with 

 recent developments and recent needs in 

 science. And on another hand the Institu- 

 tion is not wealthy enough to run any risk 

 of acquiring a political environment, or of 

 evolving a highly specialized bureaucracy. 

 And this risk is the less needful since the 

 average investigator is apt to work for the 

 benefit of the cause, unaffected by the stimu- 

 lant possibility of some day being promoted 

 to Washington with a salary of $10,000, to 

 sit in a conspicuous chair, and perhaps as 



time goes on to have a gold-braided coat, 

 frogged with gold acorns. Contrariwise, I 

 feel strongly that the great purpose of the 

 Institution would be best served if there 

 were as little salaried officialdom as pos- 

 sible for the actual administration of its 

 affairs. And I fancy that very few of the 

 eminent scientists who are invited to be- 

 come members of the committee, will refuse 

 to act, and to act zealously and effectively, 

 because they are not paid. 



The fair-division problem of the trustees, 

 then, narrows itself down to this: What 

 branches of science are to be looked upon 

 as equivalent candidates for benefits? And 

 which ones are to be favored to the detri- 

 ment of others? And for what reasons? 

 Looking over a classified list of the 'sci- 

 ences' one can readily select thirty 

 branches, each of which, like electrical 

 physics, or morphology, or organic chem- 

 istry, or psychology, or paleontology, would 

 make the best of use of a Carnegie dividend. 

 And a trustee would probably be em- 

 barrassed to have to pare down one of these 

 branches for the benefit of the others. There 

 is something to be said in favor of estab- 

 lishing a pro rata scheme of appropriations 

 for the branches in accordance with a 

 census of the number of worthy investi- 

 gators which each branch includes. But, 

 on the other hand, there are weighty rea- 

 sons why such a plan would be inexpedient, 

 since the number of workers may be out of 

 proportion to the importance of their re- 

 sults, tested from the scientific standpoint. 

 But here again is the difficulty of setting 

 up an accurate standard of comparison. In 

 any event there could be made a satisfac- 

 tory division of science into approximately 

 equivalent branches, say to the number of 

 twenty-five or thirty, and for each of these 

 an honorary committee be chosen. And the 

 Institution, by the testimony of such expert 

 committees, could be reasonably sure that 

 its annual appropriations would find their 



