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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tribute it to some ill-advised attempt 

 we are making to improve on natural 

 institutions. Science has done much 

 for the world in the past, but it has 

 yet to do much more. It will yet 

 give us a light to our feet in matters 

 educational and political, and will 

 liberate us from many of the yokes 

 and trammels we have foolishly im- 

 posed upon ourselves. Mankind will 

 then look into the face of Nature 

 and see in it a new beneficence and 

 brighter promises for the future of 

 the race. 



THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION 

 AT COLUMBUS. 



A FAIRLY good attendance, with 

 an unusually large proportion of 

 men prominent in science, and most 

 cordial welcome and painstaking 

 care of the members by the Ohio 

 Sate University and the citizens of 

 Columbus, combined to make the 

 forty-eighth annual meeting of the 

 American Association for the Ad- 

 vancement of Science a most enjoy- 

 able and instructive one. The two 

 features of the meeting which seem 

 to deserve the most attention are : 

 First, the tendency which was shown 

 in every section to direct the papers 

 and discussions to practical subjects, 

 so that all could participate in the 

 proceedings and each member feel 

 justified in having a word to say in 

 them ; and, secondly, the perfect cor- 

 diality with which the association 

 was received and the assiduous at- 

 tention with which it was taken care 

 of by the local committee. The 

 smaller and apparently less impor- 

 tant details, but at the same time 

 those which so largely determine 

 one's comfort in a strange commu- 

 nity, were thoughtfully arranged, 

 and to this alone much of the suc- 

 cess of the meeting was due. The 

 numerous excursions were not only 

 exceedingly enjoyable, but were ar- 

 ranged in every case primarily for 

 their instructive and scientific fea- 

 tures, and an Easterner, at any rate, 



could not take any of them without 

 learning something. Another fea- 

 ture of the meeting that was espe- 

 cially satisfactory was the possibil- 

 ity it afforded for the younger work- 

 ers in science to meet their elders, 

 who had hitherto led the way — who 

 were present, as we have already 

 said, in larger proportion than usual. 

 The importance of this feature, as 

 President Orton pointed out in 

 these pages a few months ago, can 

 not be overestimated. The instruc- 

 tion and encouragement which a 

 new worker in the scientific field 

 gains from a personal acquaintance 

 with the older men who have al- 

 ready achieved success and reputa- 

 tion in his branch of science are 

 obvious enough. With the increas- 

 ing specialization which modern re- 

 search is making absolutely unavoid- 

 able, the social feature of the an- 

 nual gathering of such a company 

 of scientists is coming to be its most 

 important function. A slight exten- 

 sion of it might very readily lead 

 to the adoption of a specific policy 

 by the several sections of devoting 

 at least a part of their time to such 

 a general statement of what has been 

 accomplished in their department or 

 to some especially important work 

 of general interest that some of the 

 members have been engaged in as 

 would be most instructive to the 

 members of the other sections. In 

 the earlier meetings of the associa- 

 tion the sectional chairmen often 

 made such presentations in their 

 stated addresses, but as times and 

 men have changed, the idea has been 

 departed from and this feature has 

 become an exceptional one. If it 

 could be restored, in a modified if 

 not an identical form, and made a 

 regular part of the programme of at 

 least one of the sections at each 

 meeting, the interest would be great- 

 ly enhanced, and in this way the 

 chemist, the geologist, the botanist, 

 and the others could be given regu- 

 larly an authoritative account of 



