SCIENCE 



Friday, April 30, 1909. 



CONTENTS 



The Functions and Organization of the Amer- 

 ican Society of Naturalists : Pbofessoe D. 



P. PENHALIyOW 679 



George Washington Hough : Geobge J. Hough 690 



Dinner to Professor Ramsay Wright 693 



The Shaw School of Botany 693 



Scientific Notes and News 694 



University and Educational News 698 



Discussion and Correspondence: — 



On Generic Names: De. Feancis B. Sum- 

 nee. A Mendelian View of Sex Heredity: 

 Peofessoe W. E. Castle. Biographical 

 Directory of American Men of Science: 

 Peofessoe J. McKeen Catteh 698 



Scientifio Books: — 



Grinnell on the Biota of the San Bernardino 

 Mountains: Veenon Baii.et. Gage on the 

 Microscope: Peofessoe Michael F. Guyee. 700 



Scientific Journals and Articles 702 



Botanical Notes: — 



The Botany of the Faeroes; The Grasses of 

 Cuba: Peofessoe Chaeles E. Besset .... 702 



Special Articles: — 



Secondary Chromosom,e-couplings and the 

 Sexual Relations in Abraxis: Peofessoe 

 Edmund B. Wilson 704 



The national Academy of Sciences 706 



The American Society of Naturalists: Peo- 

 fessoe H. McE. Knowee 707 



The American Federation of Teachers of the 

 Mathematical and the Natural Sciences: 

 Peofessoe C. R. Mann 707 



The American Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science: — 

 Section F — Zoology: Peofessoe Maubice 

 A. Bigelow 711 



Societies and Academies: — 



The Anthropological Society of Washing- 

 ton: John E. Swanton. The Washington 

 Chemical Society : J. A. Le Cleec 717 



USS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended for 

 leTiev should be gent to tlie Editor of BctMSCic, Garrison-on- 

 Hudaon, K. Y. 



THE FUNCTIONS AND ORGANIZATION OF 



THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF 



NATURALISTS'- 



The American Society of Naturalists 

 was founded, under the name of The So- 

 ciety of Naturalists of the Eastern United 

 States, in 1884, by a group of the leading 

 biologists of the day. Some of these have 

 long since passed away. Others yet remain 

 with us and are among the most active and 

 most distinguished representatives of bio- 

 logical science in America to-day. 



The motives underlying this movement 

 are not difficult to discover. They are to 

 be found in the great trend toward an 

 intense specialization which at that time 

 began to attract wide-spread attention and 

 called for great concentration of effort and 

 more exacting methods ; in the rapid devel- 

 opment of a refined and precise technique ; 

 in a growing demand for improved science 

 teaching in schools, and in an appreciation 

 of the fact that the arbitrary distinctions 

 hitherto maintained between the two great 

 schools of biological research must shortly 

 disappear in joint efforts toward the solu- 

 tion of the great problems of life. The 

 logical outcome of this point of view neces- 

 sitated careful consideration of the rela- 

 tions in which the new order of scientific 

 thought and progress must stand toward 

 methods of research and the constitution of 

 societies and academies of science. 



But above all, it became a matter of first 

 importance to determine the relations of 

 the new order to the rising generation and 

 through them to the future specialist and 

 scientist. In other words, it became clear 

 that the methods of science teaching must 

 ' Presidential address delivered at the Baltimore 

 meeting, December 31, 1908. 



