374 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVII. Xo. 088 



There appeared at one time a possibility 

 that Mr. Carnegie's great research founda- 

 tion might knit together and unite the 

 workers of our country into a net by which 

 the depths of science should be dragged, 

 but there is a bottom to every purse, and, 

 large as its resources are, the Carnegie In- 

 stitution has found the requirements of in- 

 vestigators to be still larger, and its policy 

 seems to be crystallizing wisely into ample 

 support of relatively few definitely con- 

 trolled studies rather than a broadcast dis- 

 sipation of its resources without such con- 

 trol. There is perhaps nowhere a better 

 illustration of efficient, self-centered organ- 

 ization on a large working basis, but our 

 national Geological Survey offers an equal- 

 ly good illustration of this type. 



When the agricultural experiment sta- 

 tions were established, with national sup- 

 port and under the supervision of a na- 

 tional bureau, some persons thought that 

 cooperation between the stations might be 

 secured through the latter. Whatever the 

 purpose of the law may have been, as con- 

 ceived, its provisions, as embodied in legis- 

 lation, have given to the central office little 

 authority beyond financial supervision. 

 Perhaps it is best that this should be so— 

 every question is many-sided : but it is gen- 

 erally conceded theoretically that larger 

 strides might have been made in agricul- 

 tural science by greater concentration and 

 correlation of the effort of the stations. 

 The newer addition made to their equip- 

 ment for investigation by the Adams act 

 more clearly provides for this, and prom- 

 ises adequate results; but it is already 

 bringing prominently to the front other 

 cooperative needs, the most important of 

 these referring to the channels of scientific 

 publication. 



As a matter of fact, the Carnegie Insti- 

 tution and United States Geological Sur- 

 vey do not illustrate cooperation in the 

 sense in which I understand the word to 



be used this afternoon. Each is really an 

 aggregation of workers whose tenure of 

 office as well as their scientific activities are 

 more or less definitely under the control of 

 a recognized chief. Their effort, because 

 of this control, is as certain to be produc- 

 tive of desired results, under good leader- 

 ship, as is that in a well-managed factory 

 — subject always to the greater difficulty of 

 directing the activity of educated men Avith 

 wishes of their own as to the application 

 of their talent. The— not always popular 

 and variously successful — efforts of such an 

 organization to enlist extraneous volunteer 

 cooperation are beset by peculiar difficulties 

 that are not to be disposed of in a word; 

 one of the greatest of these perhaps lying 

 in iinexpressed and unaccepted but no less 

 real punitive power at the central desk. 

 The ultimate coordination of experiment 

 station activities, if effected, can only add 

 another illustration of good administration 

 of a self-contained organization which pays 

 its constituents for the effort that it there- 

 fore controls. 



Real cooperation, though it will always 

 have to direct its aims with reference to 

 those of such powerful endowed aggregates 

 as may exist, can hardly be looked for 

 through the latter. Its units must be the 

 scattered men of science who constitute the 

 university and museum forces of the coun- 

 try—one or a few in a place. The difficul- 

 ties of effecting and maintaining such co- 

 operation are identical in part with those 

 underlying good government, and can be 

 met, apparently, only in the way in which 

 municipal problems are met successfully. 



Is such cooperation desired ? The native 

 Mexican never hails the coming of the 

 civilizer after he has once understood him 

 and his ways ; more work and greater com- 

 petition are what he sees as his own por- 

 tion. His question, Is greater progress 

 worth its cost? is worthy of consideration. 

 If it be granted that it is, It is hardly 



