PUBLIC INTERESTS 93 



in 1848 to lay a formal expression of opinion before 

 the Council, in which he pointed out that ' the 

 practice of obeying local invitations has been pro- 

 ductive of good and evil : good by the spontaneous 

 awakening of many important places to scientific 

 activity ; evil by the introduction of elements 

 of display, temporary expedients, and unnecessary 

 expense.' Since these words were written there 

 have been (if the expression be allowable) eruptions 

 from time to time on the kindred questions of the 

 relationship between the scientific and the social 

 elements in Association meetings, and of the relation- 

 ship between the scientific work in the sections, and 

 the interests of the public. Of the latter question 

 there was an investigation by the Council in 1877, 

 when it was ruled that some surer means should 

 be adopted of excluding ' unscientific or otherwise 

 unsuitable papers and discussions ' from the sectional 

 meetings, and the organising sectional committees 

 were given powers of exclusion : this investigation 

 was chiefly noteworthy for the attack upon the 

 Section of Economics by Francis Galton, to which 

 reference has been made already (p. 88). 



Discussion on the more frequent inclusion of 

 popular features in the sectional proceedings was 

 resumed in 1903, when it was left permissively to 

 the organising sectional committees to arrange their 

 work to consist ' as far as possible of discussions of 

 scientific questions of general importance at the time/ 

 and to make arrangements ( for popular lectures, 

 demonstrations, etc./ in the afternoons, addressed 

 primarily ' not to men of science, but to the other 

 members of the Association/ In the same year 

 several more general suggestions in connexion with 



