44 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLII. No. 1071 



zines of many kinds, and frequent articles 

 in numerous other publications, throw much 

 light upon some of the operations of vari- 

 ous public services, but there does not seem 

 to be available any regular and systematic 

 source of adequate knowledge as to what is 

 regularly going on. Books, indeed, several 

 of them, exist having this for their purpose, 

 and they are good to have and read. Yet 

 it is doubtful if any of them really fulfils 

 its mission. Such an organization as the 

 Chamber of Commerce of the United States 

 continuously and with effect strives to per- 

 form for the business world the function of 

 giving knowledge concerning the govern- 

 ment. It maintains committees which are 

 in more or less frequent touch with differ- 

 ent departments; it publishes a paper of 

 much value; yet I doubt if its able and 

 effective officers would feel that their func- 

 tion lay in the way of informing the whole 

 public on all our governmental affairs or 

 even if they would say that they had as yet 

 reached that state of perfection of infor- 

 mation for their own share of our public 

 that they themselves desire. 



The truth seems to be that in a republic 

 where a knowledge of public affairs is more 

 or less charged upon us all by the very- 

 nature of our institutions these same insti- 

 tutions have grown so vast and far-reach- 

 ing, so intricate in their operations, that it 

 is, to say the least, extremely difficult for 

 any one to follow them. Indeed, one might 

 talk to you for two hours on the work of a 

 single bureau of the Department of Com- 

 merce without exhausting that subject, yet 

 neither that bureau nor that department is 

 among the largest there are. If to the 

 burden thus imposed, happily without con- 

 sciousness, upon the average man, there is 

 added that of understanding his own state 

 and municipal affairs, plus the duties of 

 his own vocation, the responsibilities of the 

 citizen of a republic would seem onerous 

 indeed. 



It would undoubtedly, however, be push- 

 ing our thought much too far to urge any 

 such comprehensive view as the duty of 

 any single man. For one such to follow 

 the daily changes arising from the evolu- 

 tion of our national government would be 

 itself a serious task. The important thing, 

 and the thing which unfortunately exists 

 far too little, is to know accurately the 

 things which we do know. How is this 

 to be done? Each department is a great 

 storehouse of facts which in many ways it 

 strives to make known and to utilize. In 

 dealing, as we in our department do, with 

 the promotion of our foreign trade in one 

 of our services, the problem is ever before 

 us how to let the business world know what 

 we are actually doing for it. Through 

 branch offices, by use of press and plat- 

 form, by the publication of a daily paper, 

 bj^ official reports, monographs, and such 

 other use of the press as brings our annual 

 total of expenditures for printing up into 

 the hundreds of thousands of dollars per 

 annum, we strive to inform the people. 

 Yet we are conscious that much more needs 

 to be done than is in fact accomplished. 

 It is a common thing to have men say when 

 this or that or the other thing is shown 

 them, "I had no idea of this." Speaking 

 not long since to a prominent manufacturer 

 of the work in behalf of manufactures of 

 one of our great bureaus he said he had not 

 even heard of the bureau. I do not mean 

 that he was to blame. The fact is the means 

 of informing our people on their o^vn 

 affairs, even in this land of printing presses 

 and publications, either are not adequate, 

 or if they are sufficient they do not for 

 some reason perform the function. 



Possibly some may say that official re- 

 ports are not so juicy a type of literature 

 as to afford pleasant food for the mind, and 

 no one who has had to write such a report 

 would argue to the contrary. Nevertheless 



