20 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLV. No. 1149 



sent out their information about new books in 

 this form, the recipients could file the cards 

 in any way which fitted their needs best and 

 could feel reasonably sure of being able to find 

 quickly the necessary information, when the 

 need should arise. Printing some of the in- 

 formation on the reverse of the card should 

 not be objectionable. One or two publishers 

 have recently done a little along this line of 

 advertising and doubtless many teachers have 

 wished that publishers would introduce the 

 plan generally. I am sending you this infor- 

 mation in the hopes that publishers of educa- 

 tional books may have their attention brought 

 to the desirability of putting their announce- 

 ments in the form suggested. It should be a 

 good business investment for them. 



WlLHELM SeGERBLOM 



Department op Chemistky, 



The Phillips Exeter Academy, 

 Exeter, N. H. 



QUOTATIONS 



THE WORK OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION 



The meeting in 'New York this week of the 

 American Association for the Advancement of 

 Science and fifty other affiliated national scien- 

 tific societies, is an event which ought to loom 

 large in the minds of thoughtful people. Not 

 only do the thousand papers and reports read 

 at the various section meetings themselves 

 represent a large part of recent scientific 

 achievement, but the meeting and exchange 

 of views between men occupied in different 

 fields can not but stimulate and liberalize the 

 great human effort to conquer the jungle of 

 ignorance and prejudice that surrounds the 

 little clearing of cultivated science. Yet de- 

 spite the fact that the meeting this week gives 

 due prominence to the chemical conditions of 

 " preparedness," and other matters affecting 

 oiu: national prosperity, it does not seem likely 

 that it will do much to shake the massive 

 apathy toward the spread of science and scien- 

 tific method which characterizes our educated 

 classes. A large part of this apathy is due to 

 the vague but widespread feeling that science 

 no longer needs any champions, that since the 

 days of Tyndal, Huxley and Youmans, it has 



conquered and taken possession of all our edu- 

 cational institutions. 



ISTothing could be farther from the truth. 

 Compared with the provisions for scientific re- 

 search in coimtries like France and Germany, 

 ours are pitifully meager. The energy of our 

 colleges and universities is primarily directed 

 to increasing the number of students, build- 

 ings and degrees conferred. The professors 

 are so loaded up with routine teaching and 

 such an unconscionable amoimt of adminis- 

 trative work, that he who would engage in 

 genuine scientific research must do so by 

 stealth and at the expense of his health. !N"or 

 do we provide many incentives for that kind 

 of work. The public reward and recognition 

 extended to technologic promoters is out of all 

 proportion to that extended to scientific 

 achievement itself — witness the millions of 

 people who have heard of Edison but not of 

 Theobald Smith, or who think that Marconi 

 invented wireless telegraphy. Probably thou- 

 sands of Yale men have not heard of Willard 

 Gibbs, one of the most creative minds in nine- 

 teenth-century science, whose work at New 

 Haven was possible largely because he was a 

 man of means and of good family. Perhaps 

 the general cause of science might prosper 

 more in this country if there were greater co- 

 operation and less provincial isolation among 

 the various groups of specialists. Thus the 

 great meeting in New York this week is 

 marked by the absence of all the social sci- 

 ence associations, which meet in Columbus, 

 Ohio. The separation between the social and 

 the physical scientists can siirely not be of any 

 real advantage to either. At any rate the 

 great outstanding and deplorable fact is that 

 on the vital questions requiring their coopera- 

 tion, e. g., the effect of immigration or of the 

 interbreeding of races we have multitudes of 

 impassioned orations and sophomore essays, 

 but nothing worthy of being called science. 

 Thousands upon thousands of studies have 

 been devoted by the historians to the Ger- 

 man migrations of the fifth century. Can it 

 be that recent events because we are in a posi- 

 tion to know more about them are necessarily 

 of lesser intrinsic importance? — The New 

 Repuhlic. 



