254 



SCIENCE, 



[Vol. VI., No. 137. 



The superintendent has, therefore, little liberty of 

 action. For instance, the very sums devoted to pen- 

 dulum experiments, so strongly condemned by the 

 committee, must have figured in the estimates sub- 

 mitted by him to congress. Neither could Mr. Hil- 

 gard be expected to reduce the coast-survey force, 

 when appropriations, insufficient, it is true, to keep 

 the force fully employed, were distinctly made to pay 

 the salaries of the employees who had grown old in the 

 service of the government. The publications of the 

 coast-survey only contain communications strictly 

 relevant to such investigations as were authorized by 

 the appropriations. As to the experts living at a dis- 

 tance from Washington, such specialists have always 

 been employed by the coast-survey. They have usu- 

 ally received a very moderate compensation for work 

 carried on in addition to their usual avocations, — 

 work which could not have been done otherwise ex- 

 cept at great expense. 



The article in the Evening post implies that the 

 coast-survey has been a party to the distribution of 

 scientific salt in the shape of gifts, such as photographs, 

 chromo-lithographs, illustrated books, and the like, 

 and has also done its full share in the way of personal 

 favors to congressmen. Whatever have been the 

 failings of the administration of the coast-survey, 

 there never has been a ' political scientist ' at its head ; 

 and the above charges are, so far as I know, abso- 

 lutely false. My belief is based on an intimate asso- 

 ciation of many years with this department of 

 government work. 



The method of investigation adopted in this case 

 seems somewhat autocratic. Even at this day the 

 superintendent has not seen or been able to obtain a 

 copy of the charges brought against him, having merely 

 been requested to reply in writing to a number of ques- 

 tions. He himself, as well as the assistant in charge 

 of the office, the disbursing agent, and the chiefs of 

 two divisions, were suspended: in other words, dis- 

 graced, if not dismissed, before the investigation was 

 begun. Some of these officers had served the depart- 

 ment faithfully and intelligently for nearly forty years. 

 Such off-hand condemnation of a bureau from which 

 so much work has gone forth of a character most 

 honorable to the science of the country, is surely to be 

 deprecated in itself, and can hardly be considered by 

 scientific men as less than an outrage upon them all. 

 They have a right to ask that the wholesale imputations 

 thus cast ujwn official science should be carefully veri- 

 fied before they are accepted. 



Thus far the scientific public has received the re- 

 port of the commission through the newspapers 

 alone, and the press has been liberally supplied with 

 inaccurate and ex-parte statements in regard to the 

 investigation into the coast-survey affairs. Their 

 dictum upon the late superintendent, at least as far 

 as his professional career is concerned, is answered 

 by his position as an investigator in the scientific 

 world. In this jury, called for the express purpose 

 of deciding upon the value and efficiency of scientific 

 work, men of science have had no voice. 



On several occasions attempts have been made, 

 through the medium of the National academy of 



sciences, to revise the organization of the scientific 

 bureaus according to a comprehensive plan, which 

 might remedy the evils of the present system. A 

 committee of congress has at last taken up the matter, 

 but nothing of value has as yet been effected; nor 

 have the recommendations of the academy had the 

 least weight with government officials, or with mem- 

 bers of congress. No member of the cabinet has 

 availed himself of its councils, though the academy 

 was especially chartered by congress to be the scien- 

 tific adviser of the government. Since its organiza- 

 tion, superintendents of the coast-survey, of the 

 nautical almanac, of the signal-service, of the geo- 

 logical-survey, and of other scientific bureaus, have 

 been appointed without consultation with the men 

 of science in the country. 



We do not ask that a scientific bureau should be 

 absolved from the requirements of ordinary business 

 methods, or that the dictates of common sense should 

 be forgotten in its administration. Scientific men 

 can only sympathize with the efforts of the adminis- 

 tration to reform the management of the scientific 

 bureaus at Washington. They protest merely against 

 ignorant interference with scientific affairs. Is the 

 superintendent of the coast-survey, the head of the 

 nautical almanac, the director of the geological-sur- 

 vey, or the secretary of the Smithsonian, to submit 

 the scientific expenses of these bureaus to the judg- 

 ment of a clerk in the auditor's department? The 

 necessary appropriations having been made, is that 

 department, or any member of it, to decide upon the 

 value of the scientific work thus provided for, or 

 upon the method of its execution? Surely such an 

 alternative would be worse than the state of demorali- 

 zation said to exist now in our scientific bureaus. If 

 this be the nature of the contemplated changes, they 

 can only be dreaded by the friends of science. 



The surveillance can hardly be too strict; but let it 

 be intrusted, so far as scientific work and methods 

 are concerned, to men who have some training in 

 both. Undoubtedly there is much which should be 

 changed at Washington with a view to introducing a 

 proper co-ordination among the different scientific 

 bureaus. But the blame for this does not rest on the 

 ' political scientist ' alone. The former secretaries of 

 the interior, of the treasury, of war, and of the 

 navy as well as congress, are partly responsible for 

 the existing confusion and inefficiency; they have 

 tolerated a duplication of work which has little by 

 little brought about the present state of things. 



One word more as to the character of the work 

 done by the coast-survey. Professor Bache himself 

 was perhaps the most successful of all the heads of 

 our scientific bureaus, in obtaining from congress 

 the appropriations necessary to the maintenance and 

 efficiency of his department. He and Peirce origi- 

 nated the very scientific investigations now decried 

 by the committee. Their successors have only car- 

 ried out the methods and the physical experiments 

 which they deemed necessary. Are these to be aban- 

 doned because a treasury expert has seen fit to con- 

 demn valuable experiments, and to indulge in a few 

 cheap jibes about ' swinging the pendulum ? ' That he 



