46 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVII. No. 941 



held at Philadelphia, and that a summer 

 meeting be held at San Francisco in 1915. 

 The following officers were elected for 

 the coming year: 

 President: E. B. Wilson, Columbia University, 



New York. 

 Vice-Presidents : 



Section A — Frank Sehlesinger, Allegheny Ob- 

 servatory. 

 Section B — A. T>. Cole, Ohio State University. 

 Section C — A. A. Noyes, Massachusetts Institute 



of Technology. 

 Section D— 0. P. Hood, U. S. Bureau of Mines, 



Washington, D. 0. 

 Section E — J. S. Diller, U. S. Geological Survey. 

 Section F — A. G. Mayer, Carnegie Institution of 



Washington. 

 Section G — H. C. Cowles, University of Chicago. 

 Section H — W. B. Pillsbury, University of Mich- 

 igan. 

 Section L — P. P. Claxton, U. S. Commissioner 

 of Education. 

 General Secretary: H. W. Springsteen, Western 



Reserve University. 

 Secretary of the Council: W. A. Worsham, Jr., 



University of Georgia. 

 Secretaries of Sections: 



Section A — F. E. Moulton, University of Chi- 

 cago. 

 Section D — A. H. Blanchard, Columbia Univer- 

 sity. 

 Section F — H. V. Neale, Knox College. 

 Section G — W. J. V. Osterhout, Harvard Uni- 

 versity. 

 Section H — George G. MacCurdy, Yale Univer- 

 sity. 

 Section L — S. A. Courtis, Detroit, Michigan. 



Place of next meeting : Atlanta, Georgia. 



Date of next meeting: Convocation 

 Week, 1913-14. 



At the general session, held Friday 

 morning at Western Reserve University, 

 the following resolutions were adopted : 



Uesolved: that the American Association for the 

 Advancement of Science extend to the authorities 

 of Western Reserve University and to those of the 

 Case School of Applied Science, to the Board of 

 Education and the Director of Public Schools, to 

 the Mayor of Cleveland, to the local committee in 

 charge of the arrangements for the third Cleveland 



meeting of the association, now about to close, and 

 especially to the ladies' reception committee and 

 to the authorities of the different industrial plants 

 which have been opened to the inspection of mem- 

 bers, the hearty thanks of the association for the 

 admirable arrangements made, the excellent facili- 

 ties offered, and the delightful courtesy and hospi- 

 tality which have been extended by all and which 

 have been highly instrumental in making this third 

 Cleveland meeting one of the most successful which 

 the association has held in recent years. 



H. B. Summers, 

 General Secretary 



HEREDITY AND RESPONSIBILITY^ 

 One of the greatest and most far-reach- 

 ing themes which has ever occupied the 

 minds of men is the problem of develop- 

 ment. Whether it be the development of 

 a chicken from an egg, of a race or species 

 from a preexisting one, or of the body, 

 mind and institutions of man, this problem 

 is everywhere much the same in funda- 

 mental principles, and knowledge gained 

 in one of these fields must be of value in 

 each of the others. Familiarity with de- 

 velopment does not remove the real mys- 

 tery which lies back of it, though it may 

 make plain many of the processes con- 

 cerned. The development of a human 

 being, of a personality, from a germ cell 

 seems to me the climax of all wonders, 

 greater even than that involved in the 

 evolution of a species or the making of a 

 world. 



We are all familiar with the historic at- 

 tempts which have been made to solve this 

 problem. The old doctrine of evolution, 

 or preformation, solved it by practically 

 denying development; the doctrine of epi- 

 genesis recognized development but did not 

 explain it. The one found all organs and 

 parts present in the germ, which needed 

 merely to grow and unfold to bring them 



' Presidential address before the American So- 

 ciety of Naturalists, Cleveland, O., January 2, 1913. 



