309 
NOTES AND COMMENTS. 
BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 
Under the shadow of the war cloud the members of the 
British Association met at Manchester from the 7th to the 
1th September. Notwithstanding a certain gloominess, the 
sections devoted themselves to serious work, in which the 
subjects of war and women, and the effects of. war, and the 
work which women had done or could do, played an important 
part. We may be mistaken, but our impression was that 
this year there were more women taking part in the proceedings 
than usual. Having regard to the number of the younger 
members who are serving their country, to the lack of travelling 
facilities, and the absence of the usual elaborate arrangements 
for entertaining the members, the attendance this year, viz., 
1439, may be considered very satisfactory. 
THE PRESIDENT. 
Probably the attendance of distinguished scientists is 
larger this year than might have been expected under the 
circumstances of the restricted programme. But, as stated 
in The Yorkshire Observer, many have felt it a duty to put in 
an appearance to demonstrate their repudiation of an attempt 
made to boycott the President (Professor Arthur Schuster, 
F.R.S.). ‘To the neurotic, spy-smelling journalism of some 
quarters of London such a combination of letters as “ Sch’ 
in the President’s name is intrinsically unpatriotic, even 
traitorous, and so with an easy contempt for facts the demand 
was made, with all the impudence of ignorance, that the 
President should retire.’ Dr. Schuster has been called by his 
own friends ‘ an international medium of science,’ but it happens 
have been associated with Manchester for nearly a century. 
Even were it otherwise, his half-century of work in England 
and the lustre he has shed upon English science as a fellow- 
worker with Lord Rayleigh and Clark Maxwell in the famous 
school of physics at Cambridge, has well earned honour, while 
his patriotism—testified by his having given sons and nephews 
to the Army and his own time and: genius to organising, as 
secretary of a committee, the services of the Royal Society 
for the advantage of the Government—is beyond question. 
That distinguished Yorkshireman and _ brother physicist, 
Professor Silvanus Thompson, described the attack on Pro- 
fessor Schuster as ‘ one of the meanest things that has ever 
been done in the much abused name of patriotism,’ and the 
warmth of the welcome accorded to the President showed that 
the members were quite of that opinion. 
1915 Oct. 1, 
U 
