SCIENCE. 



SUPPLEMENT TO No. 115, FRIDAY, APRIL 17, 1885 



REFORMATION OF SCIENTIFIC LEGISLATION. 



Among the propositions floating in men's minds 

 with regard to the re-organization of the scientific 

 and economical works of the federal government 

 are several that can easily be disposed of as imprac- 

 ticable or otherwise objectionable. It will be ne- 

 cessary to enumerate and dispose of a few of these 

 before suggesting any satisfactory solution of this 

 important question. 



1. The proposition to put the conduct of the 

 specially scientific work, such as geology, geodesy, 

 meteorology, astronomy, into the hands of the 

 Smithsonian institution. This institution is sup- 

 ported wholly by the income of trust-funds dedi- 

 cated to a specific purpose by James Smithson, for 

 whom the government accepted the position of ex- 

 ecutor; and the government cannot legally impose 

 upon this institution any labors or expenses not 

 warranted by the terms of Smithson 's will, as in- 

 terpreted by the highest legal authority in the land. 

 The proper interpretation of the intent of the tes- 

 tator has already been so clearly settled and widely 

 accepted, that it is incredible that now, in the full 

 tide of the prosecution of his desires, the govern- 

 ment, as executor, will attempt to divert his funds 

 to other uses. But it will be said, the United 

 States has merely to appropriate additional funds 

 to enable the institution to carry out the proposed 

 increase in its work and responsibility. This 

 seems plausible ; and if carried into effect, al- 

 though it would seem to add these duties to those 

 of the present secretary of the institution, yet it 

 need not necessarily do so: in fact, it is not to be 

 supposed that the United-States government would 

 put the conduct of all its public works into the 

 hands of one man. Probably the authors of this 

 plan had in mind the regents of the Smithsonian 

 institution, and not the secretary, as the body to 

 which the government should assign its scientific 

 work: in other words, to the regents of the Smith- 

 sonian should be confided the question of the con- 

 duct both of that institution and of all our public 

 works. It is argued in favor of this, that we have 



here one institution of a high character, managed 

 by men already organized and recognized, and that 

 the transfer of others to them would be a simple 

 matter. It already has charge of not only the 

 Smithsonian institution proper, but of the national 

 museum, fish-commission, bureau of ethnology, 

 the care of the collections made by geological sur- 

 veys — and why not of every thing else V But there 

 are many other organizations under government 

 auspices, composed of men who stand ready to un- 

 dertake great trusts; and who will maintain that 

 the regents have any special qualifications over 

 others? By the law of 1846, the board of regents 

 consists of eight persons chosen from the legisla- 

 tive and executive bodies, and six other persons 

 not members of congress (two of them resident 

 in Washington, and the other four from distant 

 states). Among the twelve persons now constituting 

 the board of regents, we find only one person that 

 can be called a scientific man, — Professor Asa 

 Gray of Cambridge. From the beginning, the pol- 

 icy of the regents has been to appoint a scientific 

 and practical man 'as secretary, or superintendent, 

 or director of the institution, who is, in fact, sim- 

 ply an autocrat, although legally he is the execu- 

 tive officer of the board of regents. Under this 

 arrangement, various branches of activity have 

 prospered, such as the library, the museum, the 

 departments of exchanges, of publications, of me- 

 teorology, mineralogy, anthropology, etc. ; and 

 these departments have grown to be large divisions 

 of work. The work of the fish-commission seems 

 never to have been carried on at the expense of the 

 Smithsonian, but was entirely extra work fostered 

 by the regents, in that Professor Baird was allowed 

 to give a portion of his time to it, while the ex- 

 penses were borne by special appropriations from 

 congress: we may therefore look upon the U. S. 

 fish-commission, which was established by law 

 in 1871, as a scientific and practical institution, 

 fostered by the Smithsonian, but having an inde- 

 pendent existence of its own. The policy of the 



