428 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LIV. No. 1401 



for himself and the Concilium bad opened. 

 But though his sudden and imexpected death 

 has taken him away from this work, no one 

 can believe that men of science will be so 

 lacking in foresight and so blind to their own 

 interests that the great work which he did 

 and the institution which he founded will be 

 permitted to perish. 



Field displayed constantly a deep devotion 

 to principles and while easy to work with and 

 ready to yield where the matter in question 

 was only a difference of opinion, he stood like 

 a rock when what he regarded as fundamental 

 issues were at stake. When the project of 

 preparing a general bibiography of science 

 was developed by the Eoyal Society of Lon- 

 don, backed with large subsidies and immense 

 prestige through its official governmental af- 

 filiations, the directorship was offered to Field 

 through Sir Michael Foster. It was, how- 

 ever, set as a condicio sine qua non that the 

 decimal system of notation should be aban- 

 doned in favor of another employing Latin 

 titles. After careful consideration, Field 

 felt that this was a step backward and would 

 introduce confusion. Consequently, he de- 

 clined the post despite its alluring features. 

 It is interesting to note that despite the im- 

 mense resources at the disposal of the Eoyal 

 Society it never published an annual biblio- 

 graphy anything like as complete as that is- 

 sued by the Concilium and the references 

 came regularly also a year late. So de- 

 termined was the opposition to his project, 

 however, that pressure was brought ujwn uni- 

 versities abroad to bring them to cancel sub- 

 scriptions to the Concilium, and representa- 

 tions were even made to the Smithsonian 

 Institution and to private foundations in this 

 country that the Eoyal Society regarded it as 

 an unfriendly act to extend help to the Zurich 

 enterprise. In England, Manchester Univer- 

 sity protested against this attitude and with 

 characteristic independence the Manchester 

 Guardian came out in vigorous defense of 

 the Concilium. In this country. Professors 

 Henry Fairfield Osborn, E. L. Mark, C. B. 

 Davenport, and G. H. Parker were vigorous 

 in their defense of the methods and results 



of the work done by the Concilium. The 

 American Association for the Advancement 

 of Science made for many years a contribu- 

 tion to the work of the Concilium which, de- 

 spite the doubts of some members, was taken 

 from the research fund at the urgent request 

 of a large body of working zoologists who as- 

 serted emphatically that this institution and 

 its work were the most valuable single ad- 

 junct to investigation at the command of the 

 American investigator. 



His work won recognition for Field from 

 many sources. He was honorary assistant 

 of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at 

 Cambridge, Mass., trustee of the Interna- 

 tional Institute of Bibliography at Brussels, 

 Belgium, editor of the Bibliographia Zoolo- 

 gica, fellow of the American Association for 

 the Advancement of Science, and had been 

 elected to honorary membership in a long 

 list of prominent scientific societies. 



He was married in 1903 in London to Nina 

 Eschwege, who with their four children is 

 still living in Zurich. Two brothers and a 

 sister are residents of Brooklyn. 



Few men have devoted themselves so in- 

 cessantly and unselfishly to the service of 

 others. If he had withdrawn in his own lab- 

 oratory and had concentrated on his individual 

 researches his unusual mental endowment 

 would unquestionably have produced con- 

 spicuous results. He chose rather to devote 

 himself to the improvement of conditions for 

 his fellow workers. He threw himself into 

 this work with all the powers at his command 

 and what he accomplished has been of in- 

 estimable service to a multitude of workers. 

 Henry B. Ward 



Untversity op Illinois 



SCIENTIFIC EVENTS 



WINTHROP ELLSWORTH STONE 



The Associate Alumni of the Massachu- 

 setts Agricultural College through their ex- 

 ecutive committee has adopted the following 

 minute : 



Winthrop Ellsworth Stone, an honored member 

 of the class of 1882 of the Massachusetts Agri- 

 cultural College and since 1900 President of Pur- 



