January 5, 1917] 



SCIENCE 



of $3, and also because it makes the mem- 

 bership more permanent, members hesi- 

 tating to withdraw for a short time when 

 such a fee must be paid to resume their 

 membership. The council, however, passed 

 a resolution providing that those becoming 

 members of the national affiliated societies 

 might be elected to membership in the 

 American Association without payment of 

 the entrance fee, if they join the association 

 within one year of becoming a member of 

 the affiliated society. This offer should give 

 assistance to the affiliated societies as well 

 as the association, and should serve to unite 

 in the association almost without exception 

 the younger scientific men of the country. 

 The nation should be proud of its scien- 

 tific men when it regards the three presi- 

 dents of the association, the retiring presi- 

 dent, the president of the meeting and the 

 president elect. Dr. "W. "W. Campbell, di- 

 rector of the Lick Observatory, who has 

 twice crossed the continent to attend the 

 meetings and has devoted his invaluable 

 time to the organization of the Pacific Di- 

 vision, gave the address as retiring presi- 

 dent, which in content and in form of pres- 

 entation set a model which any similar offi- 

 cer anywhere in the world will find it hard 

 to meet. This address will be printed in 

 Science as soon as arrangements can be 

 made for the illustrations. Dr. Charles R. 

 Van Hise, president of the University of 

 Wisconsin, in the front rank of geologists in 

 a country which leads in geology, and 

 equally a leader in university education and 

 in movements for the public welfare, made 

 an admirable presiding officer, both in the 

 general sessions and at the meetings of the 



council. Dr. Theodore W. Richards, di- 

 rector of the "Wolcott Gibbs Memorial Lab- 

 oratory, Harvard University, distinguished 

 wherever chemical research is undertaken, 

 the only native-born American to whom a 

 Nobel prize in science has been awarded, 

 was elected to preside at the meeting to be 

 held next year at Pittsburgh and to give 

 the address the following year in Boston. 



PRODUCTIVE SCIENTIFIC SCHOLAR- 

 SHIP i 



I WARMLY sympathize with the ambition 

 expressed in your annual report to have 

 this musem more than a mere zoologic or 

 scientific museum. It should be a museum 

 of arts and letters as well as a museum of 

 natural history. The ethnology and arch- 

 eology of the Indians of New York make, up 

 a subject peculiarly apparent for treat- 

 ment in a museum of this character. There 

 should be here a representation of all our 

 colonial and revolutionary life. There 

 should be in this museum, for the instruc- 

 tion and inspiration of our people, a full 

 representation of American history since 

 the time when New York cast off its pro- 

 vincial character and became an integral 

 portion of the American republic. Finally 

 there should be here all the representation 

 possible of the great arts and great litera- 

 tures of the nations of the past, and the na- 

 tions of the present; so that, enriched by 

 the knowledge of what has been done else- 

 where, in time and in space, our own peo- 

 ple shall be better equipped to work in the 

 fields of original productive scholarship. 



All this lies in the future. At present we 

 have only to do with biology. 



A museum of this character has more 

 than one function to fulfil. It must pre- 



1 Address delivered at the opening of the New 

 York State Museum in the State Education Build- 

 ing, Albany, . N. Y., on the evening of December 

 29, 1916. 



