Science in Public Affairs

branch of science which can claim this as its own special sphere. The physical well-being of the nation cannot be entrusted to any one class of specialists. The aid of the medical man must be invoked, but a general practitioner will not suffice; there is need of the dietetist, of the public health officer, of the physiologist, the oculist, the aurist, and others. Further, the help of a statistician is needed, and an economist, and an educationist?in fact, representatives of every department of sociology. And when each man has given in his specific scientific contribution, there will remain the difficult task of co-ordinating all this knowledge so as to bring it to bear on the physical development of the race. However difficult such a task may be, it is abundantly clear that the work badly needs doing?how badly it must be one of the objects of this essay to show. For, verily, in this matter we have drifted too long. A lethargic public opinion muddles on from one 'mild sensation to another, and the nation's open sores call aloud for help, but in vain. A Committee reports on Physical Deterioration; politicians hungering for a party cry, or eager only to let sleeping dogs lie, and fanatics with some cure-all nostrum, eagerly catch up the Report, but its language is too mild for them. They find no grand and drastic reform proposed, only a number of remedies, minor in themselves, however cumulatively far - reaching. As a result, the Report is shelved. Yet the docum...