140 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXX. No. 7G1 



medical journals would be best qualified to 

 speak with full knowledge, and in profes- 

 sional circles knowledge gives authority 

 whatever may be the case with the public 

 at large. A practical difficulty in making 

 such a change in the character of the ap- 

 pointments to the clinical chairs, which in- 

 terests the univereity authorities directly, 

 is the doubt whether properly prepared 

 men would be willing to surrender the re- 

 wards and popular appreciation that are 

 attached to the career of a successful physi- 

 cian. This is again the kind of question 

 that discussion does not throw much light 

 upon. When we meet with difficulties of 

 this kind in laboratory work we put the 

 matter to the test of experiment and 

 thereby settle the dispute. Our country is 

 in a peculiarly favorable position to make 

 such an experiment. Our system of med- 

 ical education has heretofore simply de- 

 veloped along lines laid down by the ex- 

 perience of foreign countries; perhaps in 

 the direction suggested above we may have 

 an opportunity to take the lead instead of 

 trailing along in the rear. I have had oc- 

 casions to talk with a number of young 

 clinicians on this topic and I have arrived 

 at the conviction that many of them would 

 eagerly accept an offer which, while assur- 

 ing them a modest but sufficient compet- 

 ence, would also open to them a career so 

 promising in influence, reputation and 

 possibilities for doing the highest good to 

 mankind. ^y_ h_ Howell 



The Johns Hopkins University 



TEE WINNIPEG MEETING OF THE BRITISH 

 ASSOCIATION ^ 



On Wednesday, August 25, the British 

 Association for the Advancement of Science 

 will meet for the third time in the Dominion 

 of Canada. Twenty-five years ago the first 

 Canadian meeting of the association was held 



' The London Times. 



in Montreal. Thirteen years later, in 1897, 

 advancing a stage further westwards, the 

 association met in Toronto. This year the 

 place of meeting will be Winnipeg, the Gate- 

 way City, as it has been called, of the Cana- 

 dian northwest. 



The growing frequency of these flights of 

 the British Association to the dominions be- 

 yond the seas will be realized when it is 

 remembered that in the interval since the 

 meeting in Toronto the association has paid 

 a visit (in 1905) to British South Africa. The 

 Montreal meeting in 1884, which initiated the 

 extension of the British Association's meeting- 

 grounds to places outside the British Isles, was 

 not decided on without many heartburnings. 

 For over half a century, since its establish- 

 ment in 1831, the association had always held 

 its annual meeting in one of the ancient seats 

 of learning or one of the centers of modern 

 industry and commerce in the mother country ; 

 and the proposal that it should depart from 

 this custom excited much opposition from 

 those who were wedded to the old order of 

 things. The proposal was first mooted at the 

 jubilee meeting of the association at York in 

 1881, when Captain Bedford Pirn gave notice 

 of his intention to move at the meeting of the 

 following year " that the British Association 

 do meet in Canada in 1885." In Canada itself 

 this proposal was taken up with the greatest 

 heartiness ; and before the end of the year the 

 Marquis of Lome, then Governor-General of 

 Canada, wrote to Mr. William Spottiswoode, 

 as president of the Royal Society, giving an 

 invitation to the association to meet in the 

 dominion in 1883. Various circumstances 

 prevented the council of the association from 

 accepting this invitation, whereupon a further 

 invitation was sent to the association to meet 

 at Montreal in 1884. With a view to testing 

 the feeling of members of the general com- 

 mittee with regard to a proposal which un- 

 doubtedly involved a serious departure from 

 the accepted policy of the association, a cir- 

 cular letter was issued inquiring how many 

 members of the committee would be able to 

 accept the Canadian invitation. Only 230 out 

 of 700 members of the general committee re- 



