182 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXIX. No. 735 



tute of Technology, and Professor H. E. Clif- 

 ford, professor of electrical engineering at the 

 institute, have been elected professors at Har- 

 vard University, in the School of Applied 

 Science established under the McKay bequest. 



Dr. Arthur William Meyer, professor of 

 anatomy in the Northwestern University, has 

 been called to the chair of human anatomy in 

 Stanford University. 



Habold D. Newton, assistant in chemistry 

 at Tale University, has been elected professor 

 of chemistry at the State College at Storrs, 

 Conn. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE 

 CONVOCATION WEEK 



To THE Editor of Science: The leading 

 editorial in your issue of January 8 contains 

 much food for reflection. Those of us who 

 were at the Baltimore meetings were offered 

 a very unusual menu from which to choose 

 according to our individual tastes and needs. 

 Though one may sometimes have had to 

 deviate from a normal ration, there is no 

 reason why any one should have left the great 

 meeting just closed with his hunger and thirst 

 after knowledge unsatisfied. 



Perhaps never before have there been so 

 forcefully illustrated the advantages and dis- 

 advantages of a great program with multiple 

 divisions and subdivisions, geographic segre- 

 gation of the less loosely allied interests, and 

 more or less effective contiguity of those more 

 closely eonnected. 



The purpose of this letter is to call atten- 

 tion to the loss experienced by a large part 

 of the persons present of some of the choicest 

 special " courses of the day." You enumerate 

 interesting public lectures on several ques- 

 tions of broad scientific interest. Charged 

 with the duty of attending executive sessions 

 and the meetings of special sections and 

 affiliating societies, I question whether a 

 tithe of those participating in the great ga- 

 thering knew of most of these opportunities' 

 until they had missed them. This resulted 

 through no fault of officers, but through the 

 common habit of men of looking first to the 

 things that most immediately concern them — 



and, finding so much of immediate concern, 

 failing to look further. 



Why can not the American Association pro- 

 vide best for such lectures by suspending all 

 section sessions before eleven o'clock, and 

 holding a general session of forty-five minutes' 

 duration every morning at ten for the pre- 

 sentation of a masterly address? The possi- 

 bilities of interesting people who are not 

 specialists in the work of the association 

 seems to me likely to be furthered more by 

 such a daily broad-subject large-man address, 

 protected from encroachment of the special 

 sections, than by any other one step which is 

 feasible. Evening engagements are always 

 likely to interfere with such lectures, and the 

 evenings are becoming more and more the 

 property of the affiliating national societies. 



Complaint is made of the multiplicity of 

 subjects and papers offered the various sec- 

 tions and societies. There is little profit in 

 quarreling with the increasing scientific ac- 

 tivity of the country. It has come and we all 

 want it to stay. In my own field, the secre- 

 taries in Section G and the Botanical So- 

 ciety of America cooperated so well that the 

 joint program was found workable to an un- 

 usual degree; and the special Darwin and 

 ecology sessions of the national society, de- 

 voted to papers prepared on invitation, con- 

 trasted with the more democratic sessions of 

 the section in a way very suggestive of a 

 good outcome from a general differentiation 

 of society and section activities along these 

 cleavage lines. Wm. Trelease 



gray's new manual op botany' 

 The writer of this note is not aware whether 

 the authors have printed an unillustrated edi- 

 tion of their revised edition or not. Indeed, 

 for the purpose of this criticism this would 

 make little difference, that is, if the present 

 illustrated copy is to be available for pur- 

 chase by students. The writer may have a 

 misconception of the value of Gray's 

 " Manual," but takes this opportunity to allow 

 that misconception to be made known, if it is 

 to be classed as a misconception. JECe has 

 ' By Robinson and Fernald, seventh edition, il- 

 lustrated. 



