THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 309
to be decided by a committee of its of fisheries was appointed from candi- scientific experts and for the more emi- dates proposed by the American So- uent of these to receive salaries not ciety of Naturalists and the American smaller than that of the executive head. I Zoological Society. In other cases Mr. Hughes has not pointed out, as ; President Wilson has asked and f ol- an impartial judge might have done, lowed the advice of scientific bodies that the two scientific appointments and scientific men, and his record in mentioned are the only ones in which this respect is certainly better than that the president is open to criticism, or 1 of any of his recent predecessors. We that he is the first president who has can only hope that he himself or Mr. officially asked the advice of scientific | Hughes, as the case may be, will still men on such points. At the meeting I further improve this record in the of the council of the American Associa- ' course of the next four years. tion for the Advancement of Science, |
held in Washington on AprU 22, ^9"^^., a NATIONAL BE8EARCH COUNCIL shortly after President Wilson 's instal- '
lation, the following resolution, pro- 1 The National Academy of Sciences posed by Mr. Cattell, was passed: 1 ^as appointed, at the request of the
___ . . , , , , I president of the United States, an or-
"Whekeas, It IS eminently desirable -xx * ^
that scientific men especially skilled in , ganizing committee to make recommen- their departments be appointed as <lations concerning a national research heads of the scientific bureaus of the 1 council of the United States. This government, therefore, committee, which consists of George E.
£c3olved, That a committee of three „ , ,. . - .1 i^j-i. tit-i o ^ be appointed to communicate to the , ^a^®' director of the Mt. Wilson Solar President of the United States that it Observatory, chairman, Edwin G. Conk- is the opinion of the council of the lin, professor of zoology at Princeton American Association for the Advance- : xjniversity, Simon Flexner, director of ment of Science that a scientific man ^, , , 1 . ^ ^v t. 1 u n x skUled in meteorology should be se- ' ^^^ laboratories of the Rockefeller In- leeted as the Chief of the Weather Bu- 1 stitute for Medical Research, Robert A. reau. Millikan, professor of physics in the
The committee waited on the presi- 1 University of Chicago, and Arthur A. dent who requested the secretary of Noyes, professor of chemistry in the agriculture to consult with the com- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, mittee of the association. The secre- 1 have prepared a preliminary statement tary of agriculture at that time stated ; concerning the plans of the council, that no appointment in the department ^ Its purpose is to bring into coopera- of agriculture had been made or would tion existing governmental, educational, be made for political reasons, or even ' industrial and other research organiza- be given to a man who sought the office. ' tions, with the object of encouraging The committee of the American Asso- 1 the investigation of natural phenom- ciation called the attention of the secre- . ena, the increased use of scientific re- tary to the fact that the National ^ search in the development of American Academy of Sciences is by law the industries, the employment of scientific scientific adviser of the government, methods in strengthening the national and the president, as far as we are defence, and such other applications of aware for the first time since the law science as will promote the national se- was enacted in 1863, asked the advice curity and welfare. of the academy on an appointment. A 1 The council will be composed of lead- committee of experts of the academy ing American investigators and engi- recommended three men skilled in 1 neers, representing the army, navy, meteorology and fitted for the office of ' Smithsonian Institution and various chief of the weather bureau, and one scientific bureaus of the government ; of these was appointed by the presi- | educational institutions and research dent. In like manner the commissioner 1 endowments ; and the research divisions
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