Paul E. Howe 3 1 



cial societies the fact that they are also members of the larger 

 brotherhood of the biological sciences. In brief, the objects of the 

 Fed. may be summed up as greater efficiency and broader ideals. 



Although the existence of the Fed. has been short, it has given 

 a pretty fair opportunity of testing how far these objects could be 

 accomplished. It will therefore repay us to review briefly its 

 accomplishments. In the first place, the Fed. has not realized the 

 fears of those who believed that it would infringe on the independ- 

 ence or identity of the various constituent societies. Each society, 

 in its individual affairs, remains as independent as it pleases, as 

 independent and individnalistic as it ever was. The individual so- 

 cieties have merely been relieved of individual drudgery — and they 

 have their own turn at this every four years. 



The mechanism by which the Fed. guards the individual rights 

 and likes of its constituent societies is most interesting. The Fed. 

 Stands almost unique among societies, in that it has no Constitution ; 

 and, strictly speaking, no officers, for the societies undertake the 

 management of the meetings in the order of their seniority. 



The question naturally arises : Is this arrangement the best one ? 

 Or, Should the Fed. adopt a formal Constitution, possibly extending 

 its functions? These, as well as other questions, I leave to the con- 

 sideration of future Councils and officers. My personal preference 

 would be to let the Fed. continue its present abstract and ideal ex- 

 istence, rather than to confine it in fetters of rigidly formulated 

 rules. 



It might, however, be advisable for the individual societies, when 

 they have occasion to revise any part of their own constitutions, to 

 bring these, as far as it is wise, into harmony with the constitutions 

 of the other societies in the Fed. 



In the direction of the energetic imperative, in saving energy, 

 time and expense, the Fed. has been an unqualified success. The 

 meeting places have been selected and the arrangements made with 

 a minimum of labor, and, through the distribution of the constitu- 

 tions and the membership lists of all the societies to every individual 

 member, the experimental biologists have come to know each other 

 better. 



These results, it is true, are due largely to the devotion of the 



