802 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVI. No. 412. 



scheme, and for the existence of which 

 there can be no reasonable excuse. Its 

 legitimate work is too important to be 

 interfered with by demands which can be 

 met in ordinary channels, and if such wide 

 departures from its early policy continue 

 to be forced upon it by ill-considered legis- 

 lation, there is reason to fear that its 

 splendid career during its first half cen- 

 tury will not be repeated in the second." 

 Subsequent events have not only justi- 

 fied these conclusions, but they now appear 

 to be emphasized to an unexpected degree 

 by the action of the Secretary of the Smith- 

 sonian Institution with regard to the 

 Bureau of American Ethnology. This or- 

 ganization, like the National Museum, origi- 

 nated in the Smithsonian Institution, and, 

 as in the case of the museum, has long been 

 maintained by annual appropriations from 

 the Government. It has performed an in- 

 valuable service to science in preserving 

 the natural history of the rapidly van- 

 ishing native races of this continent and 

 has given promise of development 

 into one of the most important branches 

 of public service. Naturally, like the 

 National Museum, the Bureau of Ethnol- 

 ogy has come to occupy a definite 

 field of its own and has grown quite be- 

 yond the need of the fostering care of the 

 Smithsonian Institution. During Major 

 Powell's directorship of the bureau it at- 

 tained a quasi-independent status in spite 

 of the obvioiisly bad plan of a double- 

 headed administration, by which the di- 

 rector of the bureau was i-esponsible to the 

 Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution 

 and the Secretary to the Government. 



But now it would appear that the Secre- 

 tary of the Smithsonian Institution has de- 

 cided to relegate the Bureau of Ethnology 

 to the subordinate position of a branch of 

 the museum. If this be the case, and it 

 seems impossible to interpret the recent 

 action of the secretary in any other way, 

 we can not help regarding the step thus 

 taken as a step backward. For the bureau 

 has not only done work which has com- 

 mended itself to the Congress of the United 

 States, but it has done work which has 

 commended itself in a high degree to the 

 consensus of opinion of expert ethnologists 

 and anthropologists at home and abroad. 

 Since the reasons for the Secretary's pro- 

 cedure in this case are not evident, a 

 prompt investigation by Congress and by 

 the regents of the Smithsonian Institution 

 would seem to be called for. 



There is another aspect of this matter 

 which demands criticism. Quite apart 

 from the particular personalities involved, 

 it would appear that the Secretary has 

 registered a blow with scientific precision 

 directly at the merit system by appointing 

 as 'Chief of the bureau another man in- 

 stead of the Ethnologist in Charge, whose 

 position, abilities and record for effective 

 work in the bureau led most anthropol- 

 ogists and ethnologists of the country to 

 expect him to succeed Major Powell in the 

 directorship. Such blows have been struck 

 commonly enougli, as every one knows, in 

 the past, by political secretaries of the vari- 

 ous departments of the Government, but 

 they have rarely come from distinguished 

 men of science. Those who would like to 

 keep prominent positions in the govern- 



