128 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



noted; but almost in the turn of a hand, the charming impromptu 

 character of the meetings gave place to formality. Current publica- 

 tions were not brought in by those who, if they had had them in hand, 

 would have commented on them. Specimens not announced were not 

 brought to be shown if opportunity ofEered. Apparatus, chiefly from 

 the laboratories of the university staff, which had been easily ex- 

 hibited when the meetings were held under the university roof, was 

 rarely taken down, transported and rearranged where facilities were 

 few, with the certainty that the reverse process must be gone through 

 in the busy hours of the following day. So it quickly came about 

 that if nothing was announced for a given meeting little or nothing 

 was offered, and the council was thus compelled to provide a stated 

 program for each meeting, which contributed to cut out the last 

 remnant of spontaneity in offering the many small things which go to 

 make up the daily life of the teacher, investigator or reader, and 

 which, fresh from his own life, are of greatest interest to his asso- 

 ciates. To counteract this regrettable loss, the council, for the greater 

 part of the past decade, has striven to make the program of evident 

 interest to the non-professional members by providing, at least for 

 alternate meetings, lectures divested of technicalities on matters of 

 current scientific progress. Do what they may, however, though they 

 have succeeded in winning the approbation of the non-scientific con- 

 tingent, they have not much more than doubled the average attend- 

 ance, while the membership has correspondingly grown; and they 

 have not secured the attendance of any considerable number of mem- 

 bers or other persons not themselves closely identified with pure or 

 applied science. 



It has been evident for several years past that the accommodations 

 at the historical society's building were inadequate to the needs of the 

 academy, and access to the building had become less convenient because 

 of great changes in the location of the residence section of the city. 

 This led to another effort being made, a year or two ago, to secure the 

 much needed building; and again little reason was found for hope. 

 But during the present year, as a gift from Mrs. William McMillan and 

 her son Mr. William Northrop McMillan, the academy has been put 

 in possession of a building, conveniently located with reference to 

 intersecting car lines traversing the now widely separated residence 

 districts. It was originally built for a private school, and has there- 

 fore been found directly adapted to many uses of the academy; 

 such changes as were needed and practicable have been made, and the 

 building has been renovated and equipped with modern heating and 

 lighting appliances. 



With the opening of the fall, therefore, the academy, for the first 

 time in its existence, meets in its own home, and this, fortunately, not 

 only without any encumbrance of debt, but with a small invested fund 



