92 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 



than 6,000. A considerable proportion of the copies printed go, 

 as a matter of course, to public institutions, and not to individuals. 

 Even the Popular Science Monthly and the Scientific Ameri- 

 can, which appeal to large classes of unscientific readers, have 

 circulations absurdly small. 



The most effective agents for the dissemination of scientific 

 intelligence are, probably, the religious journals, aided to some 

 extent by the agricultural journals, and to a very limited degree 

 by the weekly and daily newspapers. It is much to be -regretted 

 that several influential journals, which ten or fifteen years ago 

 gave attention to the publication of trustworthy scientific intelli- 

 gence, have of late almost entirely abandoned the effort. The 

 allusions to science in the majority of our newspapers are singu- 

 larly inaccurate and unscholarly, and too often science is referred 

 to only when some of its achievements offer opportunity for witti- 

 cism. 



The statements which I have just made may, as I have said, 

 prove, in some instances erroneous, and, to some extent, mislead- 

 ing, but I think the general tendency of a careful study of the dis- 

 tribution of scientific men and institutions is to show that the peo- 

 ple of the United States, except in so far as they sanction by their 

 approval the work of the scientific departments of the Government, 

 and the institutions established by private munificence, have little 

 reason to be proud of the national attitude toward science. 



I am, however, by no means despondent for the future. The 

 importance of scientific work is thoroughly appreciated, and it 

 is well understood that many important public duties can be per- 

 formed properly only by trained men of science. The claims of 

 science to a prominent place in every educational plan are every 

 year more fully conceded. Science is permeating the theory and 

 the practice of every art and every industry, as well as every de- 

 partment of learning. The greatest danger to science is, per- 

 haps, the fact that all who have studied at all within the 



