SCIENCE. 



AN ILLUSTRATED JOURNAL PUBLISHED WEEKLY. 



CAMHUIDGE, MASS.: MOSES KINO, PUBLISHER. 



FRIDAY, JULY 6, 1883. 



FIELD-CLUBS AND LOCAL SOCIETIES. 



Within the last twenty- years there have 

 been a good many experiments made in tliis 

 coiintiy towards tiie deA-eJopment of science in 

 districts where access to public instruction, in 

 the way of lectures and large museums, was 

 not to be had. Some of these efforts have 

 been successful, but many of thera have failed, 

 principally from a want of understanding of 

 the conditions that make success possible. 

 There are few country towns, in this or any 

 other land, where it is possible to maintain an 

 academy patterned on the great societies. 

 Such institutions can only do good when they 

 are sure of the support of many earnest work- 

 ers, — of men to whom science is a matter of 

 all-absorbing interest. Veiy few societies can 

 be maintained without a system of publication 

 ■which is very cosll}-, and often of no measure 

 of utility compared with their expense. 



To make a society successful there must be 

 a distinct object for it to attain, — one which 

 is well within the reach of such efforts as its 

 members can bestow upon it. The success 

 must be of a tangible sort, — one that is con- 

 stantly and readily attainable, and in whioli 

 many can take an active part. In the great 

 societies of the world, this end is honor, or at 

 least notoriet}', that niaj- simulate the nobler 

 motive. In a village, a town, or even a 

 provincial capital, neither of these ends can be 

 had with suflllciont certainty to secure the 

 talent that is open to temptation. So the 

 local society languishes, or, doing better by 

 itself, dies out altogether. 



There is another form of associated action 

 among the lovere of science that escapes the 



No. 22.- 1883. 



dangers of the more pretentious associations 

 which take the name of society or academj'. 

 This is found in the field-club or purely local 

 society, whicli proposes for itself the stud3' of 

 the problems that lie at the very thresholds of 

 its people. Such associations have already 

 proved wonderfully successful in the old world. 

 They abound in England, and are numerous on 

 the continent. They have found a place in the 

 affections of the people, and a certainty of 

 continued life, where academies have dwindled 

 away. 



We do not have to look far into human 

 nature to see wh\- this success has been gained. 

 It is happily natural for men to take more inter- 

 est in near than in remote things. The prim- 

 rose by the 'rivulet's brim,' provided it is 

 one's own rivulet, is more interesting than the 

 Victoria regia of far-off wildernesses. The 

 geolog}- of the township where a man lives is 

 more interesting than that of the Colorado 

 canon, which has never concerned him. So 

 it is that any association for the study of 

 near things has a certainty of support that 

 cannot be secured for any general work in 

 science ; and field-clubs which try to jiroinote 

 the study of a township, or at most of a county, 

 are likely to find a support that surprises their 

 founders. 



Then, if the proper method be followed by 

 these clubs, there enters into their life an 

 element of the holiday which is very Air fi-oin 

 the senatorial methods of the more dignified 

 society. Their meetings should be princii)all>- 

 in the outer air ; for they thus secure tlie best 

 that the study of nature can give, something 

 of the freshness of woods and field, and 

 the cheerful contact with other fellow-niorfals 

 beneath the open sky, — a relation that has a 

 charm that is denied within four walls. 



Wherever there is a single zealous student 



