THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 



203 



of the association. The section of edu- 

 cation, not hitherto represented in the 

 presidency, was able to provide a presi- 

 dent of great distinction, Dr. Charles 

 W. Eliot, emeritus president of Harvard 

 University, once professor of chemistry, 

 for more than forty years our leader in 

 education. 



THE WOBK OF THE COUNCIL 

 OF THE ASSOCIATION 



The council of the American Asso- 

 ciation is the body in this country best 

 organized to advance the interests of 

 science. It includes the past presidents 

 of the association, who give a certain 

 stability and dignity, but is otherwise 

 an elected body, representing directly 



or indirectly the different sections of 

 the association and the national scien- 

 tific societies. Each affiliated society, 

 of which there are some thirty, is rep- 

 resented in the council, which thus be- 

 comes a body representing the eight 

 thousand members of the association 

 and practically every scientific man of 

 the country. 



The National Academy of Sciences is 

 by law the scientific adviser of the gov- 

 ernment, but, as is shown in the re- 

 cently published volume commemorat- 

 ing its fiftieth anniversary, the advice 

 of the academy has been asked only once 

 in the past ten years, and the report 

 was pigeon-holed. The fact is that the 

 vast increase of the scientific work 



Dr. .T. S. Dillee, 

 Vice-president of the Section for Geology and Geography, geologist, U. S. Geological 



Survey. 



