NOVEMBKK 14, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



787 



acquaintance with him was his altruistic 

 view of the world. He had made for him- 

 self a very noble and interesting concept 

 of the relation of nature to man, adopting 

 the spiritual theory of man as Lord of 

 Nature and as having a higher destiny than 

 nature. 



' ' What has interested me most, however, 

 in Major Powell has been the unique work 

 which he has done to perfect the govern- 

 ment policy in regard to science and to the 

 national undertaking of improvements 

 which, while they are of interest to the en- 

 tire nation, yet are too great for individual 

 or even for state accomplishment. Long 

 ago we had made the beginnings in this 

 nation, feeble beginnings as they were, of 

 great undertakings in regard to the surveys 

 of our territory and our coast lines; we 

 had, under the leadership of great and 

 noble men in our former laistory — we had 

 begun to employ the scientific expert. But 

 for the most part it was not the scientific 

 expert, but the mere laborer or the mere 

 adventurer, who came to the front and per- 

 formed the details of the work. The ex- 

 pert could not use such assistance as 

 naturally came to him by the regular 

 political methods of appointment in vogue. 

 Prom what I have been able to see, it was 

 Major Powell who worked little less than a 

 revolution in this matter of educating our 

 national legislature through its committees 

 into the habit of seeking for and obtaining 

 the scientific expert in all places where he 

 is needed. It was he who influenced by 

 his word of persuasion the government to 

 expend very large sums for the production, 

 in worthy style, of publications giving the 

 result of scientific research and exploration. 



"We are comparatively a new nation and 

 our experiment is entirely a new one. We 

 are trying to produce a nation of local self- 

 government; we seek a government that 

 while on the one hand it is elected by the 

 masses of the people, yet, on the other 



hand, has invented for itself formulas of 

 action which sift out selfishness and incom- 

 petence and ^secure the wise and fittest per- 

 sons to do the work of a great government. 

 Government work, instead of being a matter 

 of reproach, shall become a matter of pride 

 to even the best people in the country. 

 Major Powell thought it a great object to 

 aid this progress of the national govern- 

 ment into a proper sense of the importance 

 of true science. They should learn not to 

 squander large salaries on mere attaches 

 of the political machine; the government 

 should learn to know the difference be- 

 tween the true scientific man and one who 

 masquerades in the name of science. The 

 government should have specialists who are 

 learned in matters of geology and engineer- 

 ing and ethnology and botany and zoology 

 and chemistry— specialists in everything 

 that applies to science and that will be 

 found necessary in some department of the 

 great government service which extends 

 around the world and into all climates. 



"We all know what a difficult matter it 

 is to aid our government to make progress 

 in these lines. All the weight of conserva- 

 tism and all the weight of the time-servers 

 and demagogues will be thrown in the other 

 scale, but the future historian will single 

 out the hundreds and thousands of names 

 of congressmen and of public officers who 

 have done something worthy of mention in 

 this great work, and it is my conviction 

 from such observation as I have been able 

 to make that Major John W. Powell's 

 name will be found to shine in the front 

 rank when the list is made up. 



"The inventors of local self-government 

 have received from the beginning great 

 praise, but those who make local self-gov- 

 ernment possible by inventing sieves with 

 which to sift out incompetence and pre- 

 tenders to science and who invent means of 

 selecting the best talent in the nation to 

 do the nation's work and who create 



