Septemeek 4, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



315 



whether the Board can legally make a grant to an 

 institution of a denominational character. But 

 since the discussion of these questions will take 

 some time, it is proposed to continue the grants 

 of £1,500 to University College and £1,000 to 

 King's College for next year, on the understand- 

 ing that such a conference shall be held. 



Prof. W. Dames has been appointed suc- 

 cessor to the late Professor Beyrich in geology 

 and paleontology at Berlin, and will also have 

 charge of the collections in geology and paleon- 

 tology in the Museum of Natural History. 



Dr. Wilhelm Wien has been promoted to 

 an associate professorship of physics at Berlin. 



DISCUSSION AND GOBBESPONDENCE. 

 THE DEWEY DECIMAL CLASSIFICATION AND SCI- 

 ENTIFIC CLASSIFICATION. 



To THE Editor of Science : Every one who 

 hopes for any good results from the bibliographi- 

 cal conference held this summer in London 

 must be pleased to learn that that body did not 

 see its way to adopt the decimal classification as 

 a foundation for the system to be used in the 

 proposed international index to scientific litera- 

 ture. To adopt that system, even with modi- 

 fications, would undoubtedly have resulted in . 

 a deadlock for the whole science of bibliography, 

 and would have lessened, in a very considerabl'e 

 degree, the usefulness of the international bibli- 

 ography scheme. And more — it might, if such 

 a thing could be possible, have hampered the 

 progress of science as a whole, as far as scien- 

 tific work is dependent on the sources of infor- 

 mation and the methods of making these sources 

 available. 



It is ludicrous to see how certain Belgian, 

 and, surprisingly enough, also English, sup- 

 porters of the decimal classification are full of 

 enthusiasm over this so-called ' new scientific 

 language,' which is destined to take the place 

 that was held by Latin in olden times. As one 

 of these enthusiasts at great length explained : 

 ' Varme ' is a Swedish term, 'Chaleur ' is French, 

 * Heat ' is English, and you must know these 

 different languages to be able to make ovit what 

 these terms mean. But if you write down the 

 magical formula '536,' then, of course, all the 

 world knows everything about it! But if the 



treatise on ' 536 ' should happen to be written 

 in Japanese, and you do not know that lan- 

 guage, would you be any happier, if these three 

 figures were written on the top of the title-page ? 

 No completely satisfactory scheme for the 

 classification of the sciences has ever yet been 

 made, and very likely never will. Science is 

 ever progressing, and with each step it knocks 

 some part of your system upside down. And 

 the solution is not found by letting odds be even 

 and deciding for all time that ' 536 ' shall always 

 mean ' Heat.' 



The decimal classification is now being dis- 

 cussed from both sides in French and German 

 bibliographical publications,* and it might re- 

 sult in clearing up the subject of classification 

 as a whole, and in the laying down of some 

 foundation for a flexible scheme that might be 

 used in the international index. And if that 

 be so, the enthusiasts in Bruxelles have done a 

 good work, even if not exactly in the direction 

 they meant. 



Some features of the decimal classification 

 might be retained, namely, first of all, the use 

 of decimals, and, perhaps, the form divisions. 

 But the scheme itself is too hastily made up, 

 and contains too many blunders, to be used as it 

 stands, or even as a foundation for the scheme 

 itself. 



I suppose there are very few libraries of any 

 consequence that have adopted the scheme un- 

 reservedly. It would be interesting to know 

 the standing of those 1000 American libraries 

 using the system that were spoken of in the 

 Bulletin of the Institut International in Bruxelles. 

 In the two libraries, where it was first used, 

 Amherst College and Columbia University, it 

 has all been made over again. 



It has never been perfectly clear, I think, 

 whether it was devised as a system for arrang- 

 ing books on the shelves of a library, or as a 

 scheme for the classification of knowledge. If 

 you attack it on the grounds of its failure in 

 libraries, its advocates explain that it is mainly 

 a means of classifying knowledge, and vice 

 versa ! 



* The favorable part of the discussion was reviewed 

 at some length in the last number of the Library 

 Journal, but it was only mentioned that there was 

 some dissent. 



