700 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVI. No. 4(i9. 



pendence, and just consideration of the 

 right to opinion leads to the conclusion that 

 authority should be restricted to the domain 

 of business and should not intrude in the 

 realm of knov/ledge. 



From this follows a distinction which 

 may be stated as the second principle of an 

 organization for research: Administrative 

 control should be separate from scientific 

 direction. The former then allots funds, 

 supervises accounts, provides assistants 

 and facilities, refers questions, gets out 

 accepted results; in a phrase, its function 

 is to run the machinery efficiently. Its con- 

 trol over and responsibility for moneys 

 should be absolute. On the other hand, 

 scientific direction consists in planning and 

 approving plans, suggesting investigators, 

 aiding them through broader knowledge, 

 considering results and approving them for 

 publication. Its control and responsibility 

 are both partial and also widely variable, 

 according to the relations existing between 

 the director and the directed. In the Car- 

 negie Institution this second principle ap- 

 pears to be recognized in the relation of an 

 executive board and of a president who 

 executes the purposes of that board to the 

 several advisory committees composed of 

 specialists in different branches of science. 



In an organization thus built up of 

 workers, advisers and administrators, co- 

 operation becomes a vital principle to be 

 not only accepted but cordially adopted 

 and practiced. By cooperation in these re- 

 lations I mean entering into one another's 

 views and plans with an intelligent, sym- 

 pathetic, though judicial understanding, 

 with the one object of advancing the pur- 

 pose of the organization. We may confi- 

 dently hope that the Carnegie trustees and 

 the scientists who are or may be associated 

 with them will act with such breadth and 

 liberality of opinion that cooperation will 

 not fail. 



Again, from the business point of view. 



the trustees bear a heavy responsibility for 

 the administration of the trust fund, and 

 must necessarily view any proposition from 

 a side other than that from which a sci- 

 entist may regard it. In weighing the 

 relative merits of the many demands which 

 are being and will be made upon them, the 

 members of the executive board must have 

 ever in. mind the purpose to promote science 

 as distinguished from the opportunity to 

 aid individuals or institutions. To the 

 specialist who is ideally a man of single 

 purpose their conclusion may not always 

 seem obviously just, but it will be a safe 

 basis of action. The case of the exception- 

 al man who may be mqst liberally sup- 

 ported does not conflict with the general 

 rule, since if he be the exceptional man— a 

 Huxley, for example — his advancement is 

 the advancement of knowledge. 



I am indebted to the editor for oppor- 

 tunity to read in proof his own contribution 

 to the discussion of the Carnegie Institu- 

 tion, but he covers much ground with which 

 I am too little familiar to tread securely, 

 and I regret that in those items where my 

 opinion is based on experience in organiza- 

 tion, I must differ from him. The Marine 

 Biological Laboratory at Woods Holl, 

 known for the high standard of its work, 

 has a claim upon the interest even of those 

 who, like myself, had no personal knowl- 

 edge of its management, but the statement 

 which admits the handicap of financial 

 difficulties as a result of democratic or- 

 ganization is an indictment of that organ- 

 ization, and the fact that the members 

 possessed high qualities of enthusiasm, de- 

 votion and capacity for self-sacrifice does 

 not relieve the organized body of respon- 

 sibility for inefficient administration if 

 such there was; nor does that fact relieve 

 the trustees of the Carnegie Institution of 

 responsibility as trustees for the most 

 efficient use of any fund they might allot 

 to the work of the Laboratory. The as- 



