5. Of the Bureau of Ethnology.

6. Of the Army Medical Museum.

7. Of the Department of Agriculture. 8. Of the Fish Commission.

9. Of the Botanic Gardens.

10. Of the Coast and Geodetic Survey.

11. Of the Geological Survey.

12. Of the Naval Observatory. Approved, April 12, 1892.

Nine years later this was supplemented by a further resolution, approved March 3, 1901:

That facilities for study and research in the Government departments, the Library of Congress, the National Museum, the Zoological Park, the Bureau of Ethnology, the Fish Commission, the Botanic Gardens, and similar institutions hereafter established shall be afforded to scientific investigators and to duly qualified individuals, students, and graduates of institutions of learning in the several States and Territories, as well as in the District of Columbia, under such rules and restrictions as the heads of the departments and bureaus mentioned may prescribe.

The first of these acts was avowedly an attempt to encourage the incorporation of educational institutions in the District of Columbia. The second was an attempt to extend privileges to individual students without reference to their connection with any organized educational body.

It can not be said that either of these acts has produced results commensurate with the expectations. The George Washington University has, indeed, numbered among its members many students who were supporting themselves by work in the departments. But with the exception of certain students of medicine who have obtained valuable scientific privileges in the Government hospitals, this connection has been a means of self-support for the student rather than of scientific training. The George Washington Memorial Association, founded in 1901, made it one of its main objects to direct the work of students pursuing their researches in the various departments. What might have come from this movement if it had been vigorously pursued it is impossible to tell. What actually happened was that the gift of Mr. Carnegie of $10,000,000 for the establishment of the Carnegie Institution, a few months later, turned the thoughts of the promoters of the Washington Memorial Institution into other channels by giving them funds under their own control with which to direct researches, instead of making them dependent upon the close cooperation of the departments at Washington. Under these circumstances the movement, as an organized movement, was abandoned. The student who comes to Washington to-day to get his scientific training in a Government department comes under his own impulse and at his own risk.

EXISTING FACILITIES FOR STUDY AND RESEARCH.

The existing facilities for study and research divide themselves into three groups:

1. Facilities open to the general public; to wit, libraries and

museums.

2. Training schools for class instruction in preparation for specific departments of the Government service.

3. Laboratory facilities and personal instruction available to individual investigators in the various Government offices, whether these investigators be actually in the employ of the Government or not.

FACILITIES AVAILABLE FOR THE GENERAL PUBLIC.

The Library of Congress on June 30, 1907, contained 1,434,000 printed books and pamphlets, including the books deposited in the Smithsonian Institution and the law library of 122,000 volumes, which, while a division of the Library of Congress, still remains at the Capitol; besides 98,000 maps and charts, 465,000 pieces of music, and 254,000 photographs and prints.

On June 30, 1908, the number of printed books and pamphlets had increased to 1,535,008.

Both in the arrangement of the library and the rules regarding its use, every facility is given to investigators. For reference use the library is absolutely free, without introduction or credential, to any inquirer from any place. The general reader is supposed to carry on his work in the main reading room; but if he is pursuing investigations which imperatively require access to the shelves he receives the necessary permission, and if he is engaged in research involving continuous use of a number of the same books day after day, he is given a table in an alcove. If he desires to deictate to a stenographer he is assigned a separate room for doing so. There is no limit to the number of books which he may draw for reference

use.

The arrangement of the catalogues and the organization of the library staff are such as to facilitate to the utmost the work of the independent inquirer of every grade, from the casual reader, who wants a specific piece of information, to the scientific investigator, who wants to find everything that has been printed on a particular topic.

The usefulness of the library as an aid to scientific research is by no means limited to the work done within its own walls. Dr. Putnam, the librarian, has, during the nine years of his administration, developed a system of cooperation between the different libraries of the country which is of inestimable advantage to investigators everywhere. It is now possible for students in any of our large libraries to find out pretty accurately the books that are to be had and the work that can be done in the others. By the system of interlibrary loans the material in the Library of Congress is actually put at the disposal of responsible investigators all over the country. Under this system the Library of Congress will loan certain books to other libraries for the use of investigators engaged in serious research. This means that any scholar or advanced student who is within reach of a responsible local library which can guarantee proper care of the books can obtain, without the expense of going to Washington, the opportunity to study large classes of scientific and literary material which the Library of Congress possesses, and which the local library can not expect to possess. The importance of this system to the scholars of the country can not possibly be overestimated.

Libraries of the separate departments and bureaus of the Government. There are some 25 of these, probably containing a total of nearly 1,500,000 volumes and pamphlets,' the great majority of them, however, duplicates of material existing in the Library of Congress.

1 A detailed estimate of the number of volumes in these libraries, published by Mr. C. D. Walcott seven years ago, reads as follows:

By far the most important of these libraries, in public use as well as in number of books, is that of the Surgeon General's office. This library deals with all branches of medicine, surgery, and the allied sciences. It provides a reading room for the general public and special facilities for competent investigators who desire to make scientific researches. Great use is made by the medical profession of the country, and even by investigators from other countries, of the facilities here offered. The libraries of the State Department also contain unique material-more valuable to the special investigator than to the general student, who will, as a rule, find his needs better met in the Library of Congress. The various military and naval records in the libraries of the departments at Washington also possess an importance to the student of history which is wholly disproportionate to their bulk. But, on the whole, it may be said that most of the departmental libraries are arranged, and should be arranged, with primary reference to the needs of the administrative force of the several departments, and that the work of the outside investigator can be better cared for in the Library of Congress, which is arranged with a view to his needs and purposes, than in any departmental library, however complete.

This is not intended as a criticism on the administration of departmental libraries. They are, as a rule, handled generously as well as efficiently. There is an evident desire on the part of those in charge to have the books used by persons outside of the department as well as inside. But most of the Government bureaus receive large numbers of books and pamphlets which they find it hard to take care of, and harder still to arrange to utilize.

The Bureau of Education has been a special sufferer under this difficulty, and has taken practical and efficient measures to remedy it. In his statement to the Secretary of the Interior for the year ending June 30, 1908, the Commissioner of Education says:

Under the direction of the new chief of the library division, Mr. William Dawson Johnston, the library of the bureau has been thoroughly overhauled and reorganized.

The first task here was to strip the collection down to its most effective working basis by the removal of all books and other matter no longer needed or suitable for the purposes of such a special library. The pieces so removed were transferred to the Library of Congress and the District library, under the provisions of the legislative, executive, and judicial appropriations act of February 25, 1903. The following statement shows the number of pieces so transferred:

This constitutes, as I am informed, one of the largest transfers in the history of American libraries. It was made with a view solely to the increase of the working value of the library of the bureau, and that end has clearly been attained.

Museums. The most important of these are the National Museum and National Gallery of Arts, under the control of the Smithsonian Institution. The sciences most fully illustrated in the National Museum are zoology, botany, and geology, including paleontology, and the ethnology and archæology of North America.

The technical subjects best represented are firearms, land and water transportation, methods of lighting, time-taking devices, measuring apparatus, electrical appliances, ceramics, and glass making and decoration. The collections are much used for serious study, and would be used still more if it were not for the limitations of space. Apart from the general enjoyment of the exhibits by the public, it seems probable that at least 200 investigators have availed themselves of the special facilities for study during the fiscal year 1908. In the laboratories and working rooms of the museum, however, there is practically no opportunity for outside students, owing to the limitations of space.

Like the Congressional Library, the National Museum will sometimes send material away from Washington to be studied, in cases where it is impossible for the investigator to come to the museum. The regulations regarding investigators are as simple as possible. Little is required other than an assurance of good character and scientific ability. As a rule, a brief indorsement from a scientific man of reputation or from the heal of an institution with which the applicant is connected is all that is needed.

The Smithsonian Institution also has valuable material for the student in connnction with its Bureau of Ethnology and its Zoological Park. The National Botanic Garden is independent of the Smithsonian Institution, but affords opportunities for study on closely allied lines.

Hardly second in importance and reputation to the collections of the Smithsonian Institution are those of the Army Medical Museum. Among the departmental collections special mention should also be made of the museum in the Agricultural Department, and of the models and drawings of the Patent Office.

ARRANGEMENTS FOR THE TRAINING OF CLASSES.

The most important training schools conducted by the Government at Washington are the medical schools of the United States Army and Navy. These are organzations for the benefit of graduates of medical schools who need preparation for the special problems which will meet them in the service of the United States Govern

ment. The course is in every case a brief one; beyond the fact that it is well conducted, the detailed work requires little comment. Of a similar character, but perhaps even more distinctive, have been the classes organized by the Public Health and Marine-Hospital Service for the students who desire to prepare themselves for the special problems confronting that branch of the Government.

The facilities of the Government Hospital for the Insane are well utilized in connection with the instruction of medical students in George Washington University, and an effort has been made to render the collections of the Botanic Garden similarly useful to classes of college students..

Perhaps the most interesting class instruction in connection with any of the departments at Washington is that furnished by the Bureau of Standards. The assistants in this bureau receive from their chiefs regular instruction in the theoretical problems of physics connected with their work. The reports regarding the results of such instruction are extremely favorable. These classes and conferences enable the force of the department to do better practical work than it could without such training. Their results not only enable the assistants to qualify themselves for promotion within the department faster than they could otherwise, but they increase the demand for their services outside of the department in the manufacturing and mechanical industries of the country when they have reached the limit of the possibilities of their promotion at Washington.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR INDIVIDUAL RESEARCH.

The students who desire to avail themselves of these opportunities fall into two pretty distinct groups.

1. Investigators of mature age and independent resources, who have definite problems to solve for which the departments in Washington furnish more suitable or more accessible material than is to be found elsewhere.

2. Students not yet wholly established in their profession, who desire not only material for study, but also a certain amount of guidance and help from their superiors, and who wish to use their studies as a means of winning position for themselves as well as knowledge for the world.

As things stand at present the first of these classes can be well accommodated at Washington. The number of investigators who can take care of themselves and who have definite ends in views is small. It is such a pleasure to the head of a department to see a scientific man who can direct his own work and who has a definite end in view that he is always willing to make room for him in a laboratory, no matter how crowded it is.

With representatives of the second class the case is different. They can not as a rule take care of themselves. They want suggestions concerning the ends to be pursued, no less than concerning the means to be employed. They are men who need education instead of simply needing opportunity. It is this class which most people have in mind- a class of students who desire to obtain their technical and their advanced scientific training in immediate connection with some of the departments of Government work. With regard to the development of these facilities it must be confessed that the results are disappointing.