192 COMMITTEE REPORT 



In discussions which have taken place between the members of 

 the committee during the past two years the first question to be 

 decided was whether the committee should simply present a list 

 of approved genera for adoption by the Society, or should also 

 prepare a revision of the general scheme of classification presented 

 in 1917. 



It was felt by some that the presentation by the committee of 

 any scheme of classification would tend to give such a scheme 

 undue authority and to impose arbitrary limits upon the devel- 

 opment of the changing science of systematic bacteriology. It 

 should be recognized most clearly that the limits of biological 

 groups must always be subject to change with the growth of 

 knowledge. The classification presented at this time seems to 

 the committee the most reasonable outline for true biological 

 relations among the bacteria which can be drawn up in the state 

 of present knowledge, but this outline will necessarily be modi- 

 fied with the progress of investigations by individual systematists 

 of the future. It is exceedingly improbable that any member of 

 the committee would present the same classification in 1925 that 

 is presented today. Indeed as to the position of certain genera 

 the committee is itself in serious doubt at the present time. 



In spite of these facts the Committee was of the opinion that 

 it would be helpful to the members of the Society of American 

 Bacteriologists to have the best judgment of the members of the 

 committee as to the most natural method of classification at 

 present available, particularly in view of the desirability of cor- 

 recting certain errors in the earlier report already in type. Your 

 committee has therefore prepared a modified arrangement of 

 the families and genera of the Actinomycetales and Eubacteriales, 

 which is presented as section III of this report. The sequence of 

 families and genera has no special significance, and in some cases 

 it is doubtful in which families certain genera should be placed. 

 The 38 genera themselves that are here presented are however 

 believed by the committee to represent for the most part real 

 biological groups. 



The second general problem, which had to be met by the com- 

 mittee, concerned the method of defining bacterial genera. A 



