SCIENCE. 



FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 18S3. 



THE AyfERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE 

 ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 



Next week will see the annual meeting of 

 the American association for the advancement 

 of science. Although the pendulum-like swing 

 of its migration takes it this year to the 

 westernmost point of its meetings, — to a 

 flourishing city that was founded 'since the 

 association began its good work, — there is a 

 promise of a larger and more successful niect- 

 hig than has been its lot to have for several 

 3'ears. Though its roots go down slowly-, there 

 is good reason to believe that this society is at 

 last taking firm hold in our hard and stubborn 

 American society, which long seemed to den}- 

 it a fair chance of growth. It was, in fact, a 

 much more serious task than it at first seemed, 

 to create in America an association on the 

 basis of that which grew so rapidly and so 

 well in the British mother-countr}'. The suc- 

 cess of the British association was due in the 

 main to the fact that the distances the mem- 

 bers had to travel were small, so that a large 

 part of the working members could be relied 

 on to attend from year to 3-ear in a regular 

 waj- ; thus giving a continuitj- to its intellectual 

 life that has been denied to our association. 

 Then in Britain, and the sister kingdom of 

 Ireland, there are a score or more places where 

 there exists a strong local life, a pride in the 

 reputation of localit}-, and a mass of inherited 

 wealth liberalized by long tradition that could 

 easily- be brought to the support of such meet- 

 ings. Still more effective was the support 

 which a centralized government could give, 

 and the monej* that came easiU- at the call of 

 the scientific leaders who made themselves 

 responsible for the work the association under- 

 took. All these advantages were denied to 

 the American association in its earlier years. 

 In the most of its meeting-places there was 



No. 27.— 1883. 



little to uphold its work ; it toiled as a mis- 

 sionary enterprise — patiently, but with scanty 

 reward. Its recent gain in public esteem has 

 been in part the result of its own good and 

 devoted work, but in larger measure it is the 

 result of the exceedingly rapid change in the 

 condition of American city life. The frontier 

 spiiit in our American towns, the greed for 

 immediate ends, is passing awav. Few towns 

 of twentj' thousand people but have their 

 leisured class, or are without some well-shai)ed 

 ambition for a good name among men of 

 learning. Although the association was, in its 

 earlier ^-ears, somewhat before its time, our 

 life is fast growing up to be a su|)port for such 

 work as it seeks to do. Every friend of learn- 

 ing will welcome the assurance of strong life 

 that these changes give to the association, and 

 will look forward to its future with confidence 

 in its work. 



Experience that we may gain from the 

 results of the association and of its kindred so- 

 cieties in the mother-country and on the con- 

 tinent shows us clearly what this work shoidd 

 be. First of all is the gowl-fellowship, the 

 solidaritj- that is bred bj' bringing together in 

 one assembly people who have no other chance 

 to get the light from each others' eyes or the 

 spirit from their fellow-workers* tongues. 

 However we ma}- value the material gain of 

 fact, there can be no doubt that this is the 

 precious thing which the association can give 

 to American science. Our workers are neces- 

 sarily scattered by the geographical immensities 

 of their land ; the teaching that the nature 

 about their homes gives them is, from the con- 

 forrait}' of conditions in almost all neighbor- 

 hoods, limited and incomplete. More than 

 any other men of science, they need a season 

 of contact with those trained amidst other con- 

 ditions. Some things grow well in a corner, 

 but natural science is not of them. Whoever 

 has brought to a meeting of the American 

 association memories of similar gatherings in 



