Celebration of the Fiftieth Anniversary. xliii 



Taussig, and Edward Mallinckrodt. With the exception of 

 Dr. Baiimgarten, those gentlemen are all here to-night. 



In 1861, Dr. Prout, who was then President, in his annual 

 address made a very strong appeal to the members, and par- 

 ticularly to the younger members, and to those who were not 

 members of the Academy. He tried to influence them to go 

 into something definite, and become masters of it; to become 

 producers, in order that they might take the places of the 

 older men who had thus far done all of the scientific work of 

 the Academy. About that time, or a little later, there was a 

 great deal of talk of that kind, and it seems to have had the 

 desired effect. Here in this city, certainly, that has come 

 about. In all places in this country, that has been steadily 

 coming about. The result is a little different, I think, from 

 what had been anticipated. One might have hoped that those 

 who did become specialists, who did study carefully and 

 closely, some particular subject until they became masters of 

 of it, would still retain their interest for other things, but it 

 turned out to be a little different from that. This seems to 

 be our experience. Those who are interested in special lines 

 of work sometimes lose their interest in other things. I think 

 we all feel in that way more or less, but it does seem to be 

 somewhat pitiful that those of us who have looked into our 

 microscopes at something intricate and interesting, should be 

 so intent upon those things that we forget the starry 

 heavens above, and the entire world around. It does seem 

 that we ought to try to do something to broaden our ways of 

 thinking on scientific things. I do think still that we should 

 endeavor to specialize — that one should learn something and 

 pursue it, but why not still maintain our interest in other 

 things as well? I believe that part of the trouble comes from 

 the fact that when papers are offered for publication, they are 

 frequently read in great technical detail. If we could reform 

 our local Academies of Science in such a way that those papers 

 could be presented only in abstract, giving those things vital 

 and essential, leaving details for the pubhshed paper, and 

 endeavor to make that presentation as interesting as possible, 

 we should accomplish vastly more. If we, in our Academy of 



