152 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. II., No. 27. 



Europe must have felt that this social element 

 in our society left much to be desired. The 

 writer recalls the time when he attended the 

 Swiss association at Kheinfelden in one year, 

 and the American the next, in a rather gloomy 

 manufacturing town. At the Swiss meeting 

 all the members dined together in a garden 

 on the banks of the Rhine, after the morning 

 session had been gone through witli all due 

 solemnity. There was, be it confessed, much 

 wine, but so much wit and wisdom, withal, 

 that the very prophets of teetotalism would 

 have been moved to sjmpathj'. In the social 

 fire that only a table can provoke, in ordinary 

 mortals at least, these diverse folk, separated 

 by race and tongue, were fused into unity and 

 brotherhood. 



Making all due allowance for our inherited 

 need of taking diversions a little sadly, it does 

 seem that we might heighten the social ele- 

 ment in our meetings. Even the most august 

 British societies descend to tea after the meet- 

 ings, and find their profit in it from the closer 

 and more familiar life that it gives. Although 

 we use it little, our American folk have an 

 unequalled capacity for after-dinner talking ; 

 half our folk have the toast-master in them : so 

 we need not fear that such gatherings would 

 be dull. 



Coming to the apparently more scientific 

 aspects of its labors, maintaining the while that 

 the science of good-fellowship is the prince of 

 all learning, let us consider some other parts 

 of the association's work. The experience of 

 the British association seems to show that they 

 succeed in avoiding the extreme haphazard 

 nature of the discussions which mark our own 

 association. This is in part due to the con- 

 tinuity of attendance of its leading members, 

 but it seems as if a part of its gain in this 

 direction had been due to the fashion of having 

 special committees charged with the study of 

 large questions of public interest. Coming to 

 the association with their minds full of the 

 results of especiallj- designated inquiries, the 

 committee-men have been able to give an ele- 

 ment of direction to its discussions that have 

 often made them admirably deliberative, and 



exceedingly profitable to all who heaj-d them. 

 If our association would take care to provide 

 committees with important inquiries, and could 

 fui'nish them with the inonej- iiecessaiy for tlic 

 securing of information when such aid was 

 required, we might have each year a solid body 

 of matter which would insure a profit to all 

 who might attend. Giving these reports and 

 their discussion the precedence in the meet- 

 ings, the vagarists, the lost tribes of circle- 

 squarers, law-finders, and others who wander 

 in the wilderness, wonld not be able to render 

 the sessions unprofitable to students, as they 

 not unfrequently do, even in these latter days 

 of the assbciation. 



There is yet another chance of bettering the 

 association- work. One of its highest aims is 

 to foster the spirit of philosophical inquiry 

 among the people with whom its lot is cast 

 from j-ear to year. Something, but not much, 

 may be accomplished by the mere presence of 

 notable men, and their wise words. Yet the 

 odor of the sanc-tuaiy is but fleetmg : it is not 

 in the least a monumental thing. The ordinary 

 citizens or the school-children mark the fact 

 that for a week some hall puts on a beehive 

 look ; the papers have i-eports, mostl}' incom- 

 prehensible ; and then the matter is forgotten. 

 There seem to be several ways of increasing 

 the local effects of these meetings. First, 

 there should be a careful preliminary study of 

 the scientific problems that the neighborhood 

 affords, a sufficient presentation of those that 

 are understood, and a suggestion of inquiries 

 thereafter to be made. This should be printed, 

 and would serve for a local guide for the use 

 of the association, and as an incentive to local 

 workers. Then, if it seems well, the associa- 

 tion should offer some small prize to those 

 students on the ground who would carrj- farther 

 the inquiries that this report has shown to 

 be desirable. If the conditions pennit, the 

 association would do well to see that some 

 local society, such as the field-clubs that were 

 recently advocated in these columns, should 

 be created, to remain as a successor to its 

 objects and a fosterer of its work. In the 

 inspiration that these meetings generally 



