466 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



THE COMING INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF ARTS AND 

 SCIENCE AT ST. LOUIS, SEPTEMBER 19-24. 



By Professor SIMON NEWCOMB, U. S. N. (retired), 



PRESIDENT OF THE CONGRESS. 



A MONG the numerous attractions of the Universal Exposition at 

 -*--*- St. Louis, there is one which appeals with special force to all 

 interested in the progress of learning. The assembling of congresses 

 on various subjects has, especially in recent years, been so prominent 

 a feature of great expositions of industry that such gatherings have 

 recently tended to lose in interest. But the directors of the St. Louis 

 World's Fair decided, at an "early stage in their preparations, to make 

 special efforts for bringing together a congress which should be more 

 comprehensive in its scope, of wider interest in its discussions, and 

 of more permanent value as a memorial of the exposition, than the 

 usual conventions of this class. After holding several consultations 

 with eminent scholars it was decided that the field of the congress 

 should be as wide as that of science itself. The first question to arise 

 in considering such a scheme would be how it was possible with the 

 present multiplication of specialties in science to arrange a congress 

 whose discussions should embrace a field as wide as that of knowledge. 



It must be admitted that if the principal aim were to rend and 

 present scientific papers and researches nothing could result but the 

 addition of a few more volumes to the almost unmanageable collection 

 of published scientific literature. Farther consultations with educators 

 and others led the directors to adopt a new plan for reaching the de- 

 sired result, which was suggested and worked out in detail b} r Professor 

 Miinsterberg. Its idea was to supplement all the specialties by a dis- 

 cussion of the principles of the more important groups of sciences, and 

 of the methods by which the sciences should be brought together, uni- 

 fied, and made mutually helpful. 



That some effort of this kind is desirable must be evident to any 

 one who contemplates the almost alarming increase of specialties in 

 scientific research, coupled as it necessarily is with lack of knowledge 

 on the part of any one investigator of the work being done by his 

 fellows. We all know that new fields of research are continually being 

 opened, and that the older fields are continually being extended into 

 minuter specialties. New societies with their proceedings, and new 

 journals are continually being established. Moreover the volume of 

 papers published in any one established journal frequently goes on 



