SCIENTIFIC WORK OF THE GOVERNMENT.

BY MICHAEL A. LANE.

(Michael A Lane was born at St. Louis in 1867; educated in the classics at the University of St Louis; studied theoretical biology privately; studied practical anatomy and physiology at the University of Illinois, and, later, practical histology and neurology at the University of Chicago; worked for eight years to identify the facts of social evolution in man and lower animals with the law of natural selection; published his theory in a work entitled "The Level of Social Motion" in 1902; contributor to American magazines, 1893 to 1905.]

Patronage of science and philosophy has always been one of the distinguishing characteristics of an enlightened state. This was no less true of the great university at Alexandria than of the earlier scientific foundations in Europe, when the princes of Germany, Sweden, France, Italy, Spain, and England gave their substantial help to the patient researchers who devoted their lives to the discovery of the true interpretation of nature.

For its most vigorous growth science must be removed from all thought of sordidness, selfishness and profit.

"The man of science," said a distinguished German visitor to the United States recently, "must have a light heart. He must be free from the cares of mere money making, and his small personal wants must be supplied by others whose spirits are large enough to look forward to the future good of the human kind. In return he gives to the human kind, free, the results of his labors."

In America the great patrons of science have been the kings of commerce rather than the sovereign whom, here, we name the state, or the people. Until recently the American government has not been forward in works of this kind, but it is now fairly on the way toward making the United States the center of scientific research of almost every kind. The government has found that science has wonderfully practicable possibilities, and at the present time the government spends nearly $15,000,000 yearly for scientific work of various kinds. This is a larger sum than is spent by any other government in the world, and the prospects are that

it will be increased year by year until the scientific budget will take its place in magnitude besides appropriations for the navy, army, and other departments, and ultimately become the chief item of expense which the government has.

There is one thing significant, however, about the scientific work of the United States government. It is nearly all of a practical, useful character. If you can show the average American that a scientific enterprise of any kind has some useful, practical bearing, he is with it heart and soul. But he cares very little for pure science-that is, science pursued for its own sake, without the slightest regard to use or profit. And yet it is this pure, unpractical, and absolute science that makes practical science possible. When members of congress come to understand this remarkable fact, and come to understand also the fact that the man of science cares very little for the profits that may be in his discoveries, congress will suppress all its watchdogs of the treasury-well named as they are. For your watchdog, especially if it be of the bull variety, is quite as apt to bite the man who is bringing gifts to its owner as it is apt to guard its owner's premises from thieves.

We have made a good start, however, with our $15,000,000, and the watchdogs who barked loudly at every new proposal for increasing the government's scientific expenditures are now happily either dead, or old and toothless.

And here, we may remark, that the soul of all the scientific work of the government is an institution which has pure science for its object-an institution which, sad to relate, was not founded by the government—although the government has charge of it--but by the benefaction of a private individual; I mean the Smithsonian institution. The Smithsonian institution should be taken over by the government and given an enormous income for the pursuit of pure science-an income large enough to attract the Kochs, the Pasteurs, the Ehrlichs, the Kelvins and the other great men of Europe to these shores. In which case Washington could be made the world's center of pure science as it is now the world's center of applied science.

To the work in pure science done by the Smithsonian institution we owe the existence of the United States geological survey, of the weather bureau, of the bureau of fisheries, and of the bureau of ethnology.

Professor Samuel Pierpont Langley was one day inspired with the idea that he could invent a flying machine. And now congress gives him a substantial sum every year to experiment with his idea. Mr. Langley may never succeed. But congress takes no account of that possibility. On the other hand, if it should turn out that he can make good, nobody will object to the expenditure of this insignificant sum for such a big desideratum.

Mr. Langley is the godfather of "the new astronomy" and some of his discoveries are highly important, although it would be hard to imagine their practical uses. For instance, as one of the research men of the Smithsonian, Mr. Langley is looking into the ultra-red of the solar spectrum― the unseen part of the rainbow at the red end-from which most of the sun's energy proceeds. He has invented a method by which he can trace the spectrum a distance of forty feet beyond the red-a performance the importance of which can be better understood if we assign to the visible spectrum a length say of 40 inches.

Another step in the right direction is the appropriation of $40,000 a year which congress makes for the ethnological work of the institution. Not much practical use can be made of a thorough knowledge of the folk lore, the institutions, and the somatic and sociological characters of the American Indians, and yet congress pays the bill for this work. The result of this generosity is the high reputation which America has abroad for the genuine ethnological work it has done. Dr. Deniker, the great French anthropologist, mentions this work in his latest published text book in which he accepts the theories of the American ethnographers concerning the existence of the mounds.

The casual visitor to St. Louis seldom expresses a desire to be shown the wonderful structures which have given St. Louis its name of Mound City. And yet, perhaps, there is nothing in St. Louis, in the way of sights as interesting

as these mounds. The mound builders were supposed to be a strange, mysterious, extinct race who had their own civilization; and it was once believed that the American Indians destroyed them and most of their works.

American ethnologists, however, have satisfactorily solved the problem by showing that the mound builders were none other than our own American tribes who built the mounds for religious and funerary purposes, but whose peaceful ways of life were disturbed by the advent of the white marauders who came from Europe after the discovery of America. Another cause of the disruption of this Indian custom was, it is held, the arrival of the buffalo in large numbers, which moved the mound builders to take to a hunting life, and thus caused them to become out and out nomads.

So much for the unpractical part of the government's patronage of science. When we come to the practical, however, there is no lack of government support. The government spends every year upwards of $75,000 on astronomy, the center of activity being the national observatory, which serves the useful end of keeping the national time. It is a comfort to know that you can set your watch by the sunor, rather, let us say, by the stars, for time is corrected by the stars. Every day at noon the national observatory sends out its time over the wires of the Western Union company which are, at that moment, cleared of all messages to all parts of the country. This correct time goes to all seaports, all cities, and all other places that can find a use for it.

Perhaps the most fetchingly practical work of government science, however, is that done by the various bureaus of the department of agriculture, which uses up more than one half of the total expenditures for scientific purposes made by the government. At the present rate of progress in this direction, the agriculture of the United States will, within less than twenty five years, become as nearly an ideal system as present individualistic methods of industry will permit. Should the government itself go into the farming businessas some bold theorists suggest-it would only be following up the logical trend of what it is now actually doing-for there is nothing that the American farmer wants in the way of new

and improved methods of work that the government is not giving him now for no fee.

An entire library would be the result were one to undertake a full account of the way in which the department spends the $6,000,000 or so that is appropriated annually for the work. In the chemistry bureau alone the activities of the government experts cover a vast range of experiment and investigation. All sorts of experiments with bacteria are going on there, looking to the production of new ferments. Among these may be mentioned the manufacture of twenty five yeasts which have been grown by cultures in apple juice with a view to making new ciders. In this way the experts can take a barrel of apple juice and, dividing it up into twenty or twenty five different parts, produce as many ciders, all with new and different flavors and all from the same juice.

The department, against much strenuous objection from reformers and opponents of intemperance, is experimenting with certain drugs, including opium; so that the poppy industry can soon be introduced into this country. It is also working on the pineapple in the hope that the fiber of this plant can be used in the manufacture of fine cloth, much as it is in the Philippine islands at present.

Our relations with the West Indies and the Philippine islands have caused a new interest to spring up in the cultivation of spices, flowers, fruits, and other products of tropical countries, particularly tobacco, with which the department is experimenting for the purpose of producing a fine quality of this drug from home grown plants. One item alone is worth consideration, as an index of what may be done in the future. In the early seventies the department of agriculture lent its assistance in the introduction to this country of the navel orange which was found growing in Brazil. In thirty five years the cultivation of the navel orange has added something like $60,000,000 to the wealth of the state of California.

The orange industry suggests the work of the department in the business of protecting crops from destructive insects. Not long ago the orange growers of California were appalled by the prospect of utter ruin from an insect parasite. In