828 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



recent years at least, falling below one fifth. From one third to one 

 fourth may be taken as a general average. The causes for these 

 fluctuations are not difficult to trace, although at first sight they are 

 not very evident. The migratory character of the association is to 

 a considerable extent the main reason. It has been the custom for 

 many years to meet somewhat alternately in Eastern and Western 

 cities; and the fact has been conspicuous that the "Western meetings 

 have usually been " off years " in attendance. At the same time, if 

 the membership from accessions in the previous year, at a large meet- 

 ing on the seaboard, has been high, the smaller attendance makes a 

 marked reduction in proportion to the membership. Other circum- 

 stances have at times caused increase or diminution in attendance in 

 special ways. Thus the Springfield (Massachusetts) meeting of 1895 

 v/as held so late in August that many teachers could not attend it 

 and be at home in time for the opening of their work at the begin- 

 ning of September, and this palpable error was probably responsible 

 for an unusually small attendance at a pleasant and convenient place. 

 The Detroit meeting of 1897 was overshadowed by the meeting of 

 the British Association at Toronto in the following Aveek, as some 

 who could not attend both occasions chose the latter as the more 

 remarkable. On the other hand, the great Philadelphia meeting of 

 1884 owed its unequaled attendance, both actual and proportional 

 (twelve hundred and sixty-one out of a total of nineteen hundred and 

 eighty-one), to the presence of a large number of British members 

 who came from the meeting of their association, held the week pre- 

 vious in Montreal, just as some four hundred American members 

 went last year to Toronto. 



Whenever the place of meeting is a large city, and particularly 

 if it be one containing important scientific institutions, like Washing- 

 ton, Philadelphia, or Boston, both the membership and the attend- 

 ance are greatly increased by the addition of many " local " mem- 

 bers. Some of these remain permanently, while others drop off in 

 the course of a few years; but the result is a net increase, though 

 subject to many fluctuations, as we have already noted. 



One fact is apparent, and very gratifying, from a study of these 

 figures in detail — to wit, that notwithstanding a certain impression 

 to the contrary in some quarters, the association has, since the civil 

 war, maintained a steady though varying growth in numbers, and 

 (when several years are taken together) a fairly uniform proportion 

 of attendance to membership. At the recent meeting, the register of 

 those present showed a little over nine hundred, while the total mem- 

 bership must be considerably above two thousand, and doubtless 

 larger than ever before. 



There seems no foundation, therefore, for the idea expressed 



