Septembeb 11, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



341 



results being given in the report. In addition 

 to the researches mentioned, a number of 

 routine tests were carried out in the various 

 departments of the Reichsanstalt, some of 

 these yielding interesting results from a com- 

 mercial standpoint. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS 

 By the will of the late Senator William IT. 

 Villas the University of Wisconsin will ulti- 

 mately receive his entire estate, valued at 

 between two and three million dollars. By 

 the provisions of the will, Mrs. Villas receives 

 the income during her lifetime, and after her 

 death her daughter receives $30,000 a year. 

 After the property is given to the university, 

 part of the income will be reserved until the 

 principal becomes $30,000,000. The will pro- 

 vides for the erection of a Henry Villas 

 Theater, and for the establishment of ten 

 professorships, each with a salary of not less 

 than $8,000, nor more than $10,000 a year. 



By the wiU of Frederick Cooper Hewitt, 

 Tale University receives $500,000; the New 

 York Post-graduate School and Hospital $2,- 

 000,000, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art 

 $1,500,000 and the residue of the estate. 



The General Education Board has offered 

 Richmond College, at Richmond, Va., $150,- 

 000, on condition that an additional $350,000 

 be subscribed. 



Norwich University, at Northfield, Vt., 

 receives an unrestricted endowment of $100,- 

 000 by the will of Colonel C. S. Barrett, of 

 Cleveland, 0. 



Me. W. J. HoENE, lecturer in physics at the 

 South African College, Cape Town, has been 

 appointed to the inspectorate of the Trans- 

 vaal Department of Public Education as or- 

 ganizer for technical education. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE 

 THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF NATURALISTS 



To the Editor of Science: Whether the 

 American Society of Naturalists should be 

 preserved or not depends on whether it has an 

 important work to do and whether its work 



can be coordinated with that of other societies 

 so that it shall be regularly called upon to 

 perform its proper functions. I, for one, 

 think it has a more important potential part to 

 play than ever before, but whether it shall be 

 permitted to play that part depends upon the 

 cooperation of naturalists in general. 



It is argued by those who regard the Society 

 of Naturalists as an anachronism that natural 

 history is no more, that in the differentiation 

 and specialization that accompany the de- 

 velopment of science it has broken up into 

 botany, zoology, etc., and that these special 

 sciences are each amply provided for by at 

 least two national societies. It does not, how- 

 ever, follow because we have societies of 

 students of plants, ferns, animals, birds, 

 pigeons, carrier pigeons, insects and butterflies 

 that the Society of Naturalists has become 

 unnecessary. I conceive that even if we had 

 a national society for each genus of animals 

 and plants there would still be biologists who 

 would find in a grand meeting of such societies 

 no home. Indeed, the more you multiply 

 societies on the basis of the material studied 

 the more need for a society which shall bring 

 together for mutual conference persons work- 

 ing on the general biological topics that are 

 common to plants, animals, insects, butter- 

 flies. Our modem societies work directly 

 against such a result. I may be working on 

 heredity in insects and you on heredity in 

 violets, but we hardly speak as we pass by 

 because, forsooth, you are a botanist and I am 

 a zoologist. Consequently we attend different 

 meetings and we fraternize with different 

 colleagues while we read papers of precisely 

 the same theoretic import at the same time 

 in buildings far apart, you to your colleagues 

 who are interested in fossil cycads, in the 

 hourly rate of growth of a gourd, in the de- 

 velopment of a moss, or in a bog-society, and 

 I to my colleagues who are awaiting their turn 

 to tell of their discoveries in the circulation 

 of an earthworm, in the properties of a new 

 nerve stain, in the bird fauna of Christmas 

 Island and the distribution of the Characinidse 

 of Brazil. No wonder we have so little dis- 

 cussions at our meetings with the diversity 

 of interests represented and the scattering of 



