130 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the functioii.s of jDublication were delegated by the principal scientific 

 bodies to a central bureau, in such manner as to secure a subject 

 division of volumes, it is not probable that the Academy of Science of 

 St. Louis would be found to oppose such a step, though its isolation 

 may prevent it from taking the initiative. 



Perhaps the most probable immediate change in the inner working 

 of the academy lies in the direction of its meetings. It is hardly to be 

 expected or even hoped that these as a whole will ever revert to the 

 character of those held when Holmes presented critical and spicy 

 analyses of the contents of such publications as came to hand, or Engel- 

 mann or Riley chatted from the master's seat on investigations being 

 carried on. Publications to-day are too complex for most amateurs of 

 science to care to follow them in detail, and the minutiae of current 

 research promise but small audiences for their advance presentation. 



In these changed conditions lies the mainspring of probable changes 

 in the organization and meetings of the academy. jSTo doubt, as 

 heretofore, the results of research offered for publication will be pre- 

 sented at the general meetings, the manuscript, with data for discussion 

 by experts, if these are present, lying on the table, and the processes 

 and conclusions being briefly and clearly presented in abstract from 

 tlie floor. Xo doubt, too, at such intervals as may prove best, special- 

 ists will continue to present in untechnical language, comprehensible 

 to laymen and teachers, analyses of progress achieved in the scientific 

 world. But it is more than probable that these general meetings will 

 be supplemented by others held by small sections of restricted aims, 

 within each of which will be found the enthusiasm for current litera- 

 ture and the warm interest in special detail that characterized the 

 earlier meetings of the academy as a whole. 



Under the constitution, such sectional organization is provided for. 

 If I do not mistake the drift of the times, the growing number of engi- 

 neers and chemists, whose professions rest upon and demand a con- 

 tinued touch with the current progress of science; of physicians and 

 pharmacists, wliose professional life is full of opportunities for the 

 observation and record of scientific detail and generalization and of 

 teachers with university training, but so fully occupied with the daily 

 routine that they can not for the moment do research work although 

 they can not afford, if they would, to lose touch with what others are 

 doing in biology, chemistry and physics — are going to find in the 

 organization of sections in the academy the most logical and economical 

 way of meeting their own needs, while through community of interest 

 they will reach a unity of purpose which will inevitably react on the 

 entire community, to the common good. 



