294 
nationalism and the needs which they indi- 
cate, the shortcomings of previous efforts and 
the most profitable lines for future advance- 
ment. Two monographs already prepared by 
Dr. P. H. Eijkman, Director of the Prelimi- 
nary Office of the Foundation, deal with 
“WL Internationalisme Medical,” 1910, and 
“L’Internationalisme Scientifique,” 1911, and 
these volumes furnish a most impressive argu- 
ment for the “ organization of organizations ” 
contemplated by the foundation. 
The advantages to be gained by interna- 
tional organization may be best estimated per- 
haps by considering what national associa- 
tions have already accomplished within their 
more limited territory. The services of the 
American Association for the Advancement of 
Science, the American Medical Association 
and the American Public Health Association 
and the American Chemical Society, for ex- 
ample, have been notable forces in their re- 
spective fields. Such organizations serve a 
twofold purpose. On the one hand, by their 
meetings and by their publications they serve 
as a medium of communication between their 
members, bringing the experience of each to 
the service of all. On the other hand, they 
serve as an authoritative medium of com- 
munication with the public, furthering as oc- 
easion demands a popular knowledge of the 
subjects with which they deal, and presenting 
a united influence upon official action to which 
their sciences are, or should be, related. 
The transition from such national societies 
to international ones has been a natural and 
inevitable one, and has led to the formation of 
world organizations and world congresses, in 
profusion. How numerous such international 
efforts have been no one probably realized 
until Dr. Eijkman brought them together (for 
medicine and for pure science and letters) in 
the two volumes to which reference has been 
made. In the second of his books he lists over 
600 international organizations and Professor 
Baskerville in an article on International 
Congresses in ScrencE for November 11, 1910, 
catalogues 125 international congresses in 
science alone. These diverse international 
societies and congresses have proved of great 
SCIENCE 
[N.S. Vou. XXXV. No. 895 
importance; but they fall far short of the 
needs, for a world organization of intellectual 
effort. For the most part there has been no 
permanent organization to connect adequately 
the work of successive congresses and there 
has nowhere been a due correlation between 
the work of different groups, drawn together 
often by some local or temporary need. There 
is duplication, on the one hand, with unoc- 
cupied fields on the other, and while certain 
congresses have been markedly successful, 
others have fallen short of reasonable expecta- 
tion. All these defects must be to some ex- 
tent inherent in human undertakings; but 
they could surely be minimized by a central 
bureau which could correlate the more im- 
portant lines of intellectual activity and give 
to each of them a permanent organization. 
Such an idea led to the establishment of the 
Office Centrale des Institutions internation- 
ales at Brussels and to the calling together 
under its auspices, of the Congres mondial 
des Associations internationales in 1910. The 
field covered by this congress was so wide, 
however, that it could hardly hope to accom- 
plish very much along specific lines. Every 
sort of international movement was included 
in the Brussels program and it is a somewhat 
large task to organize all at once the whole 
field of international life. The Foundation 
for the Promotion of Internationalism at the 
Hague has wisely determined to address itself 
rather to the specific problems presented by 
certain definite branches of science rather than 
to any all-embracing programs. 
The most promising line of advance, as Dr. 
Eijkman has well shown in his volume on 
“T?internationalisme scientifique,” has been 
marked out by the development of permanent 
organizations, of international scope, but 
dealing with related problems and represent- 
ing naturally cooperative groups. Of these 
the Association internationale des Academies 
furnishes the most notable example. Repre- 
senting as it does twenty-two academies in 
the leading scientific nations of the world, it 
occupies an authoritative position in pure 
science and letters and it has undertaken since 
its first general meeting in 1901 a series of 
