SCIENCE 



Friday, November 16, 1917 



CONTENTS 



The Present Condition of the Social Sciences: 

 Phopessor Charles A. Ellwood 469 



Work of the National Besearch Council 475 



Scientific Events: — 



Celebration in Honor of Dr. Henry Fairfield 

 Osborn; The Laboratory of the 27. S. Fish- 

 eries Biological Station at Woods Hole; 

 The American Psychological Association; 

 The Section of Education of the American 

 Association for the Advancement of Science. 477 



Scientific Notes and News 479 



University and Educational News 482 



Discussion and Correspondence : — 



Botany and Common Names of Plants : Wil- 

 LABD N. Cltjte. Lacepede or Lacipide: 

 Dr. W. J. Holland. The Forles-Winslow 

 Memorial Hospital: Margaret Forbes 

 WiNSLOw 483 



Quotations : — 

 Increased Sank and More Authority for 

 Medical Officers 485 



Scientific BooTcs: — 



Newman on the Biology of Twins: H. H. 

 W. Bies's Economic Geology: Professor 

 Alfred C. Lane 486 



Special Articles: — 

 Experiments with a Focault Pendulum: 

 Will C. Baker 489 



The Philadelphia Meeting of the National 

 Academy of Sciences 492 



MSS. intended for publicatloD and books, etc., intended for 

 review should bo Bent to The Editor of Science, Gairison-on- 

 Hudaon, N. ST. 



THE PRESENT CONDITION OF THE 

 SOCIAL SCIENCESi 



A NEW world is being born. Out of the 

 chaos and the conflict of the present it 

 seems certain that great social changes are 

 bound to emerge. At the birth of this new 

 social world it is the social sciences, not the 

 physical, which must preside. Yet we who 

 are interested in the development of the 

 social sciences must candidly ask ourselves 

 how far they are fitted to assist in the birth 

 of a new social world. How far are they 

 fitted to lead and to guide in the work of 

 social reconstruction which miist follow the 

 World War ? Do they command such gen- 

 eral respect and confidence that the masses 

 will turn to them for guidance to avoid the 

 mistakes of the past and to make secure the 

 foundations for a worthy civilization in the 

 future? Are their leaders so united on 

 fundamentals that, though they may differ 

 regarding minor details, yet they substan- 

 tially agree on the general direction which 

 reconstruction in our political, economic, 

 educational, domestic and general social 

 life should take? Can, in brief, the social 

 sciences present such an accurate body of 

 information and of generalizations from 

 facts that in this crisis sane men will turn 

 to them voluntarily for guidance, much as 

 they would to the physical sciences if any 

 one were called upon to build a bridge? 



Such questions as these are of more than 

 merely academic significance. Germany 

 has taught the world in this war the value 

 and the possibilities of social organization ; 



1 An address before the local chapter at the 

 TJniversity of Missouri of Alpha Zeta Pi, a society 

 for encouraging scholarship and research in the 

 social sciences. 



