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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



average, though some 600 fewer than 

 at the meeting in the same city twenty- 

 five years ago, when Sir John Lubbock 

 presided and the fiftieth anniversary 

 of the foundation of the association 

 was celebrated. The president this 

 year was Dr. E. Ray Lankester, direc- 

 tor of the British Museum of Natural 

 History. His address consisted of 

 two parts — one a survey of the progress 

 of science during the preceding twenty- 

 live years; the second a discussion of 

 the relations of the government to sci- 

 ence. It is an almost impossible task 

 for one man to describe the extra- 

 ordinary and diverse scientific ad- 

 vances of the past generation. Al- 

 though the address as printed is very 

 long, numerous important topics are of 

 necessity omitted, and others are per- 

 haps unduly emphasized. It is not 

 certain that Metchnikoff's phagocytic 

 theory of immunity occupies the im- 

 portant place in modern science that 

 is given to it in this address, nor even 

 that radium twenty-five years hence 

 will loom as large as it does now. 

 In his review of the influence of sci- 

 ence on the life of the community and 

 its relation to the government, Pro- 

 fessor Lankester takes the somewhat 

 pessimistic attitude which appears to 

 be common in Great Britain. He says 

 that political administrators ai'e alto- 

 gether unaware of the vital importance 

 of science in public affairs and that 

 whole departments of the government 

 in which scientific knowledge is the one 

 thing needful are carried on by min- 

 isters and clerks who are ignorant of 

 science and dislike it. Dr. Lankester 

 attributes this ignorance and dislike to 

 " the defective education, both at school 

 and university, of our governing class, 

 as well as to a racial dislike among 

 all classes to the establishment and 

 support by public funds of posts which 

 the average man may not expect to 

 succeed by popular clamor or class 

 privilege in gaining for himself — posts 

 which must be held by men of special 

 training and mental gifts." 



Dr. Lankester then enumerates on 

 the other side of the account the estab- 

 lishment of the National Physical 

 Laboratory, the subsidizing of the 

 Marine Biological Association and the 

 endowment of the Lister Institute by 

 Lord Iveagh. He continues: "Many 

 other noble gifts to scientific research 

 have been made in this country during 

 the period on which w r e are looking 

 back. Let us be thankful for them, 

 and admire the wise munificence of the 

 donors. But none the less we must 

 refuse to rely entirely on such liber- 

 ality for the development of the army 

 of science, which has to do battle for 

 mankind against the obvious disabil- 

 ities and sufferings which afflict us and 

 can be removed by knowledge. The 

 organization and finance of this army 

 should be the care of the state." 



The British Association will meet 

 next year at Leicester under the presi- 

 dency of Sir David Gill, astronomer 

 royal in South Africa. The meeting of 

 1908 will be in Dublin, and in 1909 

 the association will for the third time 

 visit Canada, meeting in Winnipeg. 



SCIENTIFIC ITEMS 

 Dr. Ludwig Boltzmann, eminent for 

 his work in theoretical physics, of 

 which subject he was professor in the 

 University of Vienna, has committed 

 suicide. 



Professor S. F. Earle has resigned 

 the directorship of the Cuban Central 

 Agricultural Station, which was organ- 

 ized in 1902.— Dr. H. C. Wood, for 

 thirty years professor of therapeutics 

 in the University of Pennsylvania and 

 until 1902 clinical professor of dis- 

 eases of the nervous system, has retired 

 from the active duties of his chair, 

 and has been made professor emeritus. 

 — Dr. A. R. Crook, for the past twelve 

 years professor of mineralogy and eco- 

 nomic geology at Northwestern Univer- 

 sity, has been appointed curator of the 

 Illinois State Museum of Natural His- 

 tory at Springfield. 



