aminers were ordered to transfer
patents in accordance with the new titles. The first classification
published with distinct subclasses appeared in 1880. From that time
until 1898 the classification grew by addition and subdivision of
classes to suit the ends of individual examiners or in response to
supposed exigencies of the work where one division was thought to be
overloaded and another underloaded, and the alphabetical arrangement of
subclasses under each class has succeeded the alphabetical list of
names. The arbitrary correspondence originally established between the
alphabetical order of class titles and the numerical order was destroyed
as soon as expansion of the classification began.

However suitable to the then-existing material of the useful arts the
classification of 1872 may have been, it failed as fail all inductive
processes wherein the generalizations are not broad and deep. (Isaac
Newton's intellect could detect the resemblance between the falling
fruit and the motions of the planets.) The classification of 1872 was
not exhaustive; it failed to recognize to the fullest extent what Bishop
Wilkins saw nearly 300 years ago, to wit, that there are "arts of arts;"
and it failed to provide for future invention of new species in the same
art, and to recognize that new arts could be formed from combinations of
the old.

BEGINNING OF REVISION.

The Classification Division was created in the hope that guiding
principles of classification could be developed and applied for the
purpose of amending or revising the classification whereby patents could
be placed with greater assurance, and whereby the searcher with these
guiding principles in mind might find the nearest references. It was
confronted with the problem of revising while at the same time keeping
accurate record of all changes, correcting all indexes of patents, and
using copies in constant demand for search at the same time,
necessitating much clerical work, and constant interruption--of
correcting rather than planning anew; of mending a machine while
constantly increasing duty was required of it.

Ideas on the subject of revision were called for by the Commissioner of
Patents, and all in the Patent Office had an opportunity to set forth
their notions. The views of one met with approval and in accordance with
those views a "Plan of Classification" was prepared and promulgated in
1900. What other plans may have been submitted is not now generally