December 10, 1886.] 



SCIENCE. 



545 



but also in the legal sense, — in the sense which 

 was meant by congress in granting the funds. 

 Nay, more, they must consider not only the in- 

 tentions of congress, but the opinions of the ac- 

 counting officers of the treasury, the comptroller 

 and auditor, aad tlieir clerks, and not rely solely 

 on their own interpretation of the statutes, if they 

 would work to the best advantage, and not have 

 life made a perpetual burden and vexation of 

 spirit. 



Tliere is a tendency on the part of business men 

 and lawyers to the belief that scientific men are 

 not good organizers or administrators, and should 

 be kept in leading-strings ; that it is unwise to 

 trust them with the expenditure of, or the account- 

 ing for, money ; and that the precise direction in 

 which they are to investigate should be pointed 

 out to them ; in other words, that they should be 

 made problem-solving machines as far as possible. 



When we leflect on the number of persons who. 

 like Mark Twain's cat, feel that they are ' nearly 

 lightning on superintending,' on the desire for 

 power and authority, which is almost universal, 

 the tendency to this opinion is not to be wondered 

 at. Moreover, as regards the man of science, 

 there is some reason for it in the very terms by 

 Mrhich he is defined, the characteristics for which 

 he is chiefly eulogized. 



The typical man of science is, in fact, in many 

 cases an abnormity, just as a great poet, a great 

 painter, or a great musician is apt to be, and this 

 not only in an unusual development of one part 

 of the brain, but in an inferior development in 

 others. True, there are exceptions to this rule, — 

 great and illustrious excejjtions ; but I think we 

 must admit that the man of science often lacks 

 tact, and is indifferent to and careless about mat- 

 ters which do not concern his special work, and 

 especially about matters of accounts and pecuni- 

 ary details. If such a man is at the head of a 

 bureau, whose work requires many subordinates 

 and the disbursement of large sums of money, he 

 may consider the business management of his 

 oflBce as a nuisance, and delegate as much of it as 

 possible to some subordinate official, who, after a 

 time, becomes the real head and director of the 

 bureau. Evil results have, however, been very 

 rare, and the recognition of the possibility of their 

 occurrence is by no means an admission that they 

 are a necessity, and still less of the proposition 

 that administrative officers should not be scientific 

 men. 



I feel very sure that there are always available 

 scientific men, thoroughly well informed in their 

 several departments, who are also thoroughly 

 good business men, and are as well qualified for 

 administrative work as any. When such men are 



really wanted, they can always be found, and, as 

 a matter of fact, a goodly number of them have 

 been found, and are now in the government 

 service. 



The head of a bureau has great responsibilities ; 

 and while his position is, in many respects, a de- 

 sirable one, it would not be eagerly sought for by 

 most scientific men if its duties were fully under- 

 stood. 



In the first place, the bureau chief must give up 

 a gTcat part of his time to routine hack work. 

 During his business, or office, hours he can do 

 little else than this routine work, partly because 

 of its amount, and partly because of the frequent 

 interruptions to which he is subjected. His vis- 

 itors are of all kinds, and come from all sorts of 

 motives, — some to pass away half an hour, some 

 to get information, some seeking oflBce. It wiU 

 not work well if he takes the ground that his 

 time is too important to be wasted on casual call- 

 ers, and refers them to some assistant. 



In the second place, he must, to a great extent 

 at least, give up the pleasure of personal investi- 

 gation of questions that speciallj' interest him, 

 and turn them over to others. It rarely happens 

 that he can carry out his o\^ n plans in his own 

 way, and perhaps it is well that this should be 

 the case. The general character of his work is 

 usually determined for him either by his prede- 

 cessors, or by congress, or by the general consen- 

 sus of opinion of scientific men interested in the 

 particular subject or subjects to which it relates. 

 This last has very properly much weight : in fact, 

 it has much more weight than one might suppose, 

 if he judged from some criticisms made upon the 

 work of some of our bureaus whose w^ork is more 

 or less scientific. In these criticisms it is urged 

 that the work has not been properly planned and 

 correlated ; that it should not be left within the 

 power of one man to say what should be done ; that 

 the plans for work should be prepared by disinter- 

 ested scientific men, as, for instance, by a com- 

 mittee of the national academy ; and that the 

 function of the bureau official should be executive 

 only. 



I have seen a good deal of this kind of literature 

 within the last ten or twelve years, and some of 

 the authors of it are very distinguished men in 

 scientific work ; yet I venture to question the 

 wisdom of such suggestions. As a rule, the 

 plans for any extended scientific work to be un- 

 dertaken by a government department are the 

 result of very extended consultations with special- 

 ists, and meet with the approval of a majority of 

 them. Were it otherwise, the difficulties in ob- 

 taining regular annual appropriations for such 

 work would be great and cumulative, for in a 



