STUDIES ON MUSEUMS AND KINDRED INSTITTTTloNS. 365 



])uriiiin and a portion of the hotiinical lit»rarv of tli(» university arc 

 deposited, and where the more advanced botanical hil)oratory courses 

 are held. In Juh' and Aut>-u.st summer courses of thirty lectures 

 each on ten topics are delivered in the universit}'. At the instance of 

 the New York Chamber of Commerce, a conunercial high school will 

 soon be org'anized. Finally, during- the winter, the professors give 

 free public courses of lectures in the two museums above mentioned 

 and in Cooper Union, a great free institution for the dissemination of 

 learning, with 3,500 students and 2,000 daily readers in the liljrary 

 connected with it. Numerous scientific societies hold sessions now 

 and then in the rooms of the university, such as the National Acadenu' 

 of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of 

 Science, with its nine sections, and also the American Astronomical and 

 Astrophysical Society, the American Chemical Society, the American 

 Mathematical Society, the American Physical Society, the Geological 

 Society of America, the American Entomological Society, the Ameri- 

 can Forestry Association, the American Society for the Promotion of 

 Engineering Education," and others. It is, therefore, a center of 

 greatly divergent and broad intellectual interests. 



At the head of the university is a president, under a board of 22 

 trustees, who form a self-perpetuating bodv and appoint the president. 

 At the same time 5 committees on finance, buildings, promotions, 

 instruction, and library ofiiciate. The university employs 85 regular 

 and 14 special professors,^' 240 assistants, etc., and 12 administrative 

 officers, besides 150 persons under the superintendent of buildings, 



« New York itself is the seat of many scientific societies. Only the following need 

 be named (from Education in the United States, edited by X. M. Butler, Albany, 

 II, 1900, p. 872): The New York Academy of Sciences, founded in 1817^ whose four 

 sections (astronomy and physics, geology and mineralogy, biology and anthropology, 

 and psychology and philology) meet monthly. (On the 23d of October, 1899, I 

 attended an interesting session of the section for anthroiwlogy and psychology, 

 which was held together with the Anthropological Club, with Prof. Franz Boas as 

 chairman.) The academy also holds general sessions. Every year a reception is 

 given, with demonstrations of scientific progress. It publishes octavo annals and 

 quarto memoirs. Its library contains 18,000 works. A scientific alliance includes 

 tlie academy and the following local societies: Torrey Botanical Clul), New York 

 MiiToscopical Society, Linnean Society of New York, New York IMineralogical Club, 

 American ^Mathematical Society, New York section of the American Chemical 

 Society, and the New York Entomological Society. It is the intention to erect a 

 central building for this scientific alliance. The Preliminary List of American 

 Learned and Educational Societies, published by the Bureau of Education in 1896, 

 enumerates 62 scientific societies in New York. 



''The position of the "Privatdocent" is not known in Columbia, nor in any 

 American university. I may mention that the professors of American universities 

 generally take a year's leave of absence on half pay every seven years, but may divide 

 such leave of aV)sence through several years. This may liave turned out to be a 

 necessity, inasnuich as a i)rolon^'ed jounu'y in Europe is of the irreatest iiiiportancc 

 to most of them. .V similar privilege ought, however, also to be granted to the 

 European jirofessors. 



