Government Scientific Services

Abstract

IN a presidential address to the WashingtonAcademy of Sciences¹ Mr. Alfred H. Brooks deals with the “Scientist in the Federal Service,” and incidentally provokes comparison of Government scientific services in Britain and the States. The field to be covered, as he remarks, is continental in dimensions, and the needs of upwards of one hundred millions of people have to be met. So vast a proposition is beyond the powers of private enterprise and demands the system-atised efforts of national bureaus. Washington, as the city of Government, formed the natural centre of Government research, and only during the last two decades became the home of other scientific institutions. In Paris, Berlin and London, science was fostered by old universities and learned societies, and it was only in researches for which co-operation on a large scale, and the maintenance of a permanent staff, were necessary, that the Government lent its aid.