7 
CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES. 4, 
may examine reviews and notices and direct their attention to anything 
worth buying. When such incompetence prevails in the selection even of 
general literature, in which all educated people are more or less interested, 
it is not surprising that less popular subjects should suffer ; and if the 
Library Committees themselves do not seek the advice of the local Socie- 
ties, the latter should certainly assert themselves more than they usually 
do, and insist that at least the more important of the larger educational 
works on science shall be properly chosen and made available for 
reference. 
I am glad to learn from this year’s Report of the Corresponding 
Societies Committee that the British Association has now decided, on 
certain conditions, to admit to our Conference Delegates from the local 
Societies which do not attempt more than the educational and missionary 
work of which I have been speaking. The importance of a Society’s 
efforts for the advancement of science is by no means always measurable 
by the extent of its publications, and I feel sure that the next Conference 
will welcome among the Delegates from the newly Associated Societies 
several most useful members. In fact, I am inclined to agree with my 
predecessor of last year, that we should discourage rather than foster the 
multiplication of publications by local Societies. I entirely disagree 
with Principal Griffiths’ proposal for the establishment of a new central 
Journal ; but I do think that the tendency towards centralisation in the 
publication of nearly all the best work during the past two decades is a 
matter for great satisfaction among scientific men. It is still possible for 
those who are engaged in research, and who publish their results in the 
journals of the great Metropolitan Societies, to be at the same time most 
active members of the Field Clubs and Societies in the districts in which 
they reside. At the local meetings they have the opportunity of discussing 
their researches with their fellows before they are sufficiently advanced 
for publication ; and I know several cases connected with my own branch 
of science in which the value of the completed work as published depends 
largely on the unreported Conferences which have been held upon it in 
the district where it was produced. There still remain, of course, several 
matters, chiefly of loca] interest, which it is advisable to publish on the 
spot, and these should form the bulk of a Society’s annual issue. 
Finally, I would allude to the main object for which this Conference 
appears to have been originally established. I think it was hoped that 
an annual meeting of Delegates would lead to more definite concerted 
action or co-operation between the local Societies in prosecuting certain 
specitied lines of research. It was thought that proposals for organised 
work might be formulated, and that each active Society would accom- 
plish its share of the programme. Year after year, however, suggestions 
have been made and inquiries have been started, in most cases, I believe, 
without any satisfactory response. In fact, the spirit of individualism 
seems to pervade our scientific Societies just as it pervades everything that 
is distinctively British. Wecannot endure the feeling that we are merely 
units in the working of an organised machine ; we all wish for freedom 
to follow our own inclinations. However large and important a Society 
may be, its main activities always depend on quite a small proportion of 
its members, and if they have gradually lapsed into a settled routine, it is 
difficult for any outside influence to make much alteration in their course. 
Moreover, I fear that the all-pervading mania for ‘tit-bits,’ which is 
so characteristic of this restless age, has penetrated even some of our 
