The Microscope. 79 



statements made in papers or discussions, ought to be far more 

 general than it has ever yet been. 



Since writing the above the February issue of this journal 

 has come to hand, and the charming symposium on my connec- 

 tion with the Working Session has been read. I can hardly be- 

 lieve it possible that these gentlemen, with most of whom I am 

 personally acquainted, took counsel of their own sober judg- 

 ment when they penned such letters. Had they read my letter 

 a second time they would have seen that their labored efforts to 

 prove that Mr. Griffith first suggested the idea of the Working 

 Session were entirely unnecessary. I freely conceded that, and 

 took pains not only not to bring any railing accusation against 

 Mr. Griffith, but to praise him with all courtesy and heartiness 

 for the share he had in the first session, at Chicago, and for the 

 great success he made of the second at Rochester, and I had be- 

 fore taken special pains to acknowledge his great services to 

 the society (v. Proc. Chicago meeting, pp. 251-2). I have not 

 sought to revive a controversy, as I am charged with doing; 

 there has been none. The Microscope and other journals East 

 and West have teemed for over a year past with high praises of 

 the Working Session, and of Mr. Griffiith as its sole originator 

 and architect, and I have kept silent, except to answer a few 

 private letters of inquiry. After waiting so long for Mr. Grif- 

 fith himself to make the correction, but in vain, I thought it al- 

 lowable in me to set forth the facts as I did, briefly and in all 

 courtesy. What controversy there has been between Mr. G. 

 and the Publication Committee of the society in this connec- 

 tion, I have taken no part in, and shall not refer to now. 

 The simple fact, whether " in a nutshell " or not, which I 

 will state once more, is that however early Mr. Griffith and 

 others may have suggested anything like the "Working Ses- 

 sion," I never heard of any such proposal till long after I had 

 myself planned and proposed such a scheme, and it had become 

 an accomplished fact. I never heard that Mr. Griffith or any 

 one else had suggested such a thing until some six months after 

 the close of the Chicago meeting. In all the large correspon- 

 dence 1 had on this subject with officers of the society, with Mr. 

 Griffith himself, and with microscopists in all parts of the coun- 

 try, I received not a single intimation that such a plan had ever 



