RETURN TO WASHINGTON FROM CHICAGO. 
In 1897 I had the great good fortune to secure my 
release from the Curators hip of Anthropology in the Field 
Columbian Museum, Chicago, and to return to Washington, 
taking up again the Head Curatorship of the Department of 
Anthropology in the National Museum. The return to Wash- 
ington was due largely to the friendship and good management 
of Dr. Charles D. Walcott, who had just become Assistant 
Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. The change was 
the outcome of a series of differences with Director Skiff 
of the Field Columbian Museum. He assumed to direct the 
scientific work without even a smattering knowledge of what 
it was or should be. He had the backing of the Museum 
Directors, Higgenbotham, Field and the rest, who knew noth- 
ing of the requirements of the Museum and its staff beyond 
what Skiff chose to tell them. It was a most agravating 
and hopeless situation for me, and to most of the staff for 
that matter. Skiff* s attitude toward me was doubtless due 
in part to jealousy, due to his fear that I was undermining 
him with the view of becoming Director. 
