Two important results have followed this policy.  One is that we have established the friendliest and most helpful relations with numerous research institutions.  The other is that we have been able to assist in the performance of much valuable work which has borne important results, and which would perhaps have remained undone had it not been possible for us to aid those who undertook it.

In due course of time came our fine new building, with good facilities for performing all kinds of laboratory work.  When it was equipped and occupied, we were able to say that the opportunities offered at Manila for investigating tropical diseases were probably unequalled elsewhere, and there was a deal of such investigation urgently needing to be made.  Our equipment for chemical research was also very complete and the vast undeveloped natural resources of the islands presented a practically virgin field for such investigation.

At the outset absurd rumours spread as to the cost of buildings and equipment, and there was much popular outcry against the supposed wastefulness of the government.  A simple statement of the facts served to kill these foolish tales, and people soon began to see that the creation of the Bureau of Government Laboratories was merely the application of common-sense to existing conditions and had resulted in greatly increased economy and efficiency.  Indeed, at the suggestion of a committee appointed to make a study of the government service and suggest measures for its betterment, the principle which I had adopted was carried still further.  Not only was all zooelogical and botanical work transferred to this bureau, but the Bureau of Ethnology and the Bureau of Mines were abolished as separate entities and were made divisions of it, and its title was changed to “The Bureau of Science.”  Little by little the scope of the work has steadily widened.

The scientific books and periodicals of the government were scattered among half a dozen different bureaus and were not being well cared for.  I arranged to have them all temporarily transferred to the library of the Bureau of Science and catalogued there.  Those said to be really needed for frequent reference were then returned to the several bureaus but were kept under observation by the bureau of science librarian, who took particular pains to look after the binding of serial publications as rapidly as the volumes were completed.

The list of books requested by the several bureau chiefs for reference was suspiciously long.  I gave orders that each set of bureau bookshelves be provided with cards and a box into which to drop them, and each time a book was used a card was made out for it and placed in the box.  After six months I quietly gathered up the cards and had them checked against the lists of books for which the several bureau chiefs had asked, and was then able to order a large proportion of them back to the library for the reason that they had not been used at all.