ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON MATHEMATICS 237 



First. The society's publications, viz., the B^dletin and the Tra7is- 

 adions, with possibly an occasional separate publication. All these 

 can turn money to good account. Some enlargement is already de- 

 sirable, in view of the increasing number of valuable articles offered 

 for publication. 



Speaking for the Bulletin, I must say that the expense of editing, 

 which was last year $33.94, can not longer be kept down to any 

 such vanishing point. The editors can not afford to attend to all 

 the mechanical details at the expense of the greater interests of the 

 Bulletin. 



Second. The library of the society is now growing rapidly. It is 

 becoming a credit to the society, and, like all healthy institutions, 

 is in need of money. The files should be extended and the back 

 numbers purchased when they can not be got by exchange. We 

 need $100 a year for this purpose, and can use $500. 



Third. We have had three successive colloquia in connection 

 with our summer meetings. These are courses of lectures by spe- 

 cialists, and tend most pronouncedly to the early dissemination 

 among the mathematicians of the country of important mathemat- 

 ical advances and discoveries. The lecturers have received only a 

 trifling honorarium. For the promotion of mathematics at the very 

 top, nothing could be more effective than the foundation of one or 

 two lectureships, to be held for one year, by incumbents who are 

 able to treat the very latest phases of some branch of mathematics, 

 the lecture to be arranged as heretofore at the colloquia. This 

 would involve an expense of, say, $100 to $200 a year — i. <?. , $200 

 to $400 every alternate year. 



Fourth. In order that administrative officers may attend to press- 

 ing matters of larger policy, a moderate amount should be available 

 for clerk hire. The librarian and the secretary can not much longer 

 look after the multitude of petty mechanical details which the admin- 

 istration of so large and active a society as ours involves. Mr. Car- 

 negie did not conduct his business on any such plan. 



Fifth. Those specialists who pass on the suitability of papers for 

 publication, particularly in the Transactions, should receive a reason- 

 able compensation, or, rather, honorariiim, for it need not be any 

 large amount. It will not be always possible to receive satisfactory 

 expert advice gratis, and this very advice is what must decide the 

 character, good or bad, of the publishing journal. I regard a mod- 

 erate expenditure in this direction as a good business and scientific 

 policy. 



