18 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the department at Yale University, where he early founded a psycho- 

 logical laboratory which has taken high rank among like establishments 

 throughout the world. The other paper for philosophy, read in the 

 author's absence by Professor Charles M. Gayley, of the University of 

 California, had been prepared by Professor George H. Howison, of that 

 university, a man beloved and revered as an inspiring teacher of philos- 

 ophy by a large and able body of students scattered over a continent, 

 uniting intense moral fervor with a highly developed metaphysical 

 imagination, and acknowledged as the most consistent defender of 

 ' spiritual idealism ' in academic circles. 



Since it is impossible to. mention by name all of the departmental 

 speakers, let us glance at the list for the physical and mental sciences, 

 sometimes called ' descriptive.' Nichols and Barus, Nef and Clarke, 

 Pickering and Boss, Davis and Chamberlin, Loeb and Coulter, McGee 

 and Boas, Baldwin and Cattell, Vincent and Giddings — of sucb names 

 we need not be ashamed. 



The important work of the 128 sections began on Wednesday and 

 lasted through Saturday, the two sections in religious influence post- 

 poning their sessions till Sunday. Each sectional meeting occupied 

 the greater part of a morning or an afternoon. 



The offices of chairman and secretary for each of the sections were 

 filled by Americans, chairmen being for the most part specialists of 

 eminence, while the secretaries usually, although by no means invari- 

 ably, represented a younger generation of scholars, conspicuous for 

 promise. 



To take the first group of sections, under philosophy, the chairmen 

 were Professors Armstrong, of Wesleyan, for metaphysics; Thomas 

 Hall, of Union Theological Seminary, for philosophy of religion; 

 Duncan, of Yale, for logic; Creighton, of Cornell, for methodology 

 of science; Palmer, of Harvard, for ethics, and Tufts, of Chicago, for 

 esthetics. The secretaries, named in the same order, were Professor 

 A. L. Lovejoy, of Washington University; Dr. W. P. Montague, of 

 Columbia; Dr. W. H. Sheldon, of Columbia; Dr. Ealph Barton Perry, 

 of Harvard; Professor F. C. Sharp, of Wisconsin; and Professor Max 

 Meyer, of Missouri. The two principal speakers were supposed to 

 treat one of the relations of their special science to neighboring 

 sciences, in the interests of orientation and adjustment, the other of 

 present problems demanding investigation in the immediate future. 

 Many of the sections listened in addition to one or more ten-minute 

 papers, which showed a tendency toward a general treatment of these 

 topics harmonious with the principal addresses, although some were 

 very special, in no sense intended to complete or supplement the main 

 discussion. Thus one interesting paper made use of a lantern to 

 illustrate the morphology and development of the kidney tubule. Im- 

 promptu discussion was opened in the section after the delivery of 

 the formal communications. The principal addresses were made in 



