70 



NATURE 



[September i6, 1920 



ledge of the subjects under consideration. If, 

 however, a section is to be regarded purely as an 

 assembly of specialists, and papers read are pre- 

 pared on this assumption, then fifty sections would 

 not be sufficient to meet the present-day differen- 

 tiation of scientific subjects. As such subdivision 

 is impracticable, intensive discussion is usually im- 

 possible, and verv few members of a section are 

 able to make profitable comments upon papers of 

 a specialised kind. Authors ought not, indeed, to 

 assume that a section as a whole consists of 

 specialists in their own minute fields, but should 

 address themselves rather to workers generally in 

 a broad department of scientific activity. Members 

 who attend any particular section do not expect 

 to learn much that is new of their own special 

 subjects, but they do want to know the chief lines 

 of progress in related branches of work. A 

 section ought not, in fact, to be addressed as a 

 scientific or technical society, but as a Royal In- 

 stitution assembly. Its main function should not 

 be technical discussion by specialists for specialists, 

 but the enlightenment of an extensive group of 

 workers as to main lines of advance in fields not 

 specifically their own. 



We know, of course, that there are practical 

 difficulties in ensuring generally intelligible dis- 

 courses from men whose main interest is in actual 

 research. Genius for discovery is not often asso- 

 ciated with the art of literary or of vocal expres- 

 sion, so that it is not uncommon to find readers of 

 papers and openers of discussions in sections 

 offending the most elementary principles of public 

 speaking. They converse with themselves instead 

 of addressing the back row of their audience; if 

 they use a lantern their slides are often mixed, and 

 are usually changed by the irritating instruction 

 "Next, please," long ago discarded bv every 

 public lecturer of any reputation; and if they use a 

 blackboard, what they scribble upon it can be read 

 by the front row only. All these sins of commis- 

 sion, as well as others of omission, may be for- 

 given when a circle is small and those who com- 

 pose it are familiar with the details of the subject, 

 but an audience which fills_ a section room has a 

 right to expect its interests to be considered, and 

 not to leave the room with a feeling of disap- 

 pointment or in a more confused state than when 

 they entered it. 



There would not be the slightest difficulty in 

 securing large audiences for joint meetings of 

 several sections, interested in different aspects of 

 broad scientific subjects, provided that reasonable 

 care were devoted to the selection of the subjects 

 NO. 2655, VOL. 106] 



and the opening speakers. The success of the 

 symposia arranged by the Faraday Society 

 through .Sir Robert Hadfield's enterprise shows 

 how keen scientific workers are to occupy a 

 common platform and understand each other's 

 contribution to a common cause. The organising 

 committees of related sections of the British 

 Association would perform a much greater service 

 to the scientific community by united action on 

 these lines than by accepting as their separate 

 programmes a variety of papers of which few are 

 novel or of wide interest. The separate action of 

 sections upon matters of common interest was 

 exemplified by four resolutions brought before the 

 General Committee at Cardiff. The Section of 

 Zoology condemned the views of the " Investiga- 

 tors " of the Secondary Schools Examination 

 Council of the Board of Education that zoology 

 was not so suitable as botany as a school subject ; 

 the Section of Geography asked that geography 

 should be recognised by the Board as a subject 

 for advanced courses in secondary schools ; and 

 that of Anthropology urged that work of a 

 regional survey type should receive official en- 

 couragement and anthropometric measurements 

 should be made of pupils in continuation schools. 

 There is an Educational Science Section of the 

 Association where all these subjects could be con- 

 sidered appropriately in joint session with the 

 sections which brought them forward, yet the 

 action was taken independently and without con- 

 sultation with the very members who are supposed 

 to be concerned with the development along scien- 

 tific lines of all schools and scholars. A joint 

 meeting of several sections on " Science and the 

 School," or similar subject, might have suggested 

 a means of adjusting the various claims made 

 upon the curriculum and the resources of schools, 

 and such a meeting should obviously have been 

 held before the Council was asked to father reso- 

 lutions of individual sections upon subjects which 

 concern other sections also. 



We mention this episode merely as an example 

 of the fissiparous tendency of the sections, and as 

 a reason for more frequently dissolving the 

 membrane which separates contiguous cells. When 

 joint meetings are arranged, however, it should 

 be remembered that the larger the intended appeal 

 the more general must be the subject selected, and 

 that the greatest common factor of knowledge 

 possessed by the audience will be correspondingly 

 lower. Huxley once said that in a public lecture 

 he addressed himself to the least intelligent 

 member of his audience, and though it may not 



