DESCRIPTIVE CHART 317 



or a one-page chart. All bacteriological instructors, therefore, 

 who read this report, if using the charts or interested in them, 

 are urged to communicate with the committee chairman 1 and 

 indicate their preferences in this matter. With such information 

 at its disposal, the committee will be able to inform the Society 

 as to what kind of a chart is generally desired, that the Society 

 can act intelligently in deciding whether to approve a revised 

 chart. 



THE QUESTION OF THE GROUP NUMBER 



The present group number is the weakest part of the chart. 

 It is still there in its present form simply because of the unwisdom 

 of changing it too often and because the committee has never 

 been able to decide what it preferred in its place. As to its value, 

 every opinion is held among the members of the committee: 

 from the conviction that the group number is the most important 

 part of the chart to the feeling that it should be omitted entirely. 

 A compromise judgment is about as follows: that the present 

 group number may be unhesitatingly condemned; that a group 

 number, calling for the right information and properly used, 

 might be very valuable; that revision of the present form must 

 be delayed no longer and that the new group number must be in 

 such a form as to prevent confusion with the old one. 



One reason for the disrepute into which the group number has 

 fallen is that too much has been expected of it. By some it has 

 been assumed that it could replace the species name, an idea not 

 apparently held by the men who first proposed the group number. 

 It should be regarded merely as the simplest form of concise de- 

 scription of an organism — a sort of short-hand notation for re- 

 cording the salient characteristics. Its chief value is as an index 



1 At the meeting of the Society it was decided not to continue the committee 

 on the chart, as such, but to appoint a new committee on bacteriological technic. 

 This new committee is to have a somewhat changeable membership, in order that 

 it may be composed of men doing actual work on problems of technic. Its present 

 members are: H. J. Conn (Geneva, N. Y.), chairman, I. J. Kligler, K. N. Atkins,. 

 J. F. Norton, and G. E. Harmon. This committee is to continue the work on the 

 chart as a part of its program. 



