JANUABT 22, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



135 



The Naturalist's Directory. Compiled in 1914. 



Salem, Samuel E. Cassino, 1914. 



This used to be a book useful to aU natural- 

 ists, and there is no good reason why it should 

 not continue to be so if the work were well 

 done and the data edited with reasonable care. 

 The new edition leaves one under the impres- 

 sion that the care taken with it was limited in 

 amount and poor in quality. At page 12Y 

 under the general head of the scientific soci- 

 eties of the United States and Canada, and 

 imder the subhead " California " are given 

 nine Canadian societies, while one other Cana- 

 dian society is given on page 129 under the 

 subhead " Canada." Under the " District of 

 Columbia" at page 128 only one society is 

 given; three others are put under "Canada" 

 on page 129. The American Association for 

 the Advancement of Science is listed under 

 Massachusetts at page 130. The names and 

 addresses in some of the foreign countries con- 

 tain an unusually large number of errors. In 

 one of those countries eight names and ad- 

 dresses contain twenty typographic errors. 

 One only needs to look for the names of a few 

 of the scientific societies he knows of or for a 

 dozen or so of the naturalists he knows to find 

 the weakness of the book. It is a great pity. 

 A book such as this one pretends to be, and 

 carefully edited, would be of great service to 

 naturalists all over the world. 



J. C. Branner 



FEATEBNITY GBADSS AT PUBBVE UNI- 

 VEBSITY 



I HAVE read with considerable interest the 

 recent article in Science on " Fraternities and 

 Scholarships at the University of Illinois," 

 by Professor Warnock, since a state of affairs 

 somewhat similar to that he describes exists at 

 Purdue University. 



A report made in 1910 by the chairman of 

 the committee on student organizations at 

 Purdue showed a relatively low grade of 

 scholarship in the fraternities. As no decimal 

 grades are used on the registrar's books, the 

 report took into account merely the percentage 

 of A grades in the various groups. This aver- 



age for the whole student body including the 

 fraternities was 64 per cent. 



The average for the honor fraternities, Tau 

 Beta Phi and Alpha Zeta, was 85, and for one 

 departmental fraternity, Triangle, 66 per cent. 



All the other fraternities were below normal, 

 ranging from 57 for Acacia to 31 for the 

 solitary sorority. Furthermore, it was shown 

 that although fraternity members constituted 

 but 30 per cent, of the total attendance, 70 per 

 cent, of all students dropped for poor scholar- 

 ship were fraternity men. 



The attention of the fraternities was called 

 to this state of affairs and various efforts were 

 made to stimulate greater interest in scholar- 

 ship among the members. 



The Alford trophy was first competed for 

 in 1912 and won by the Delta Tau Delta. This 

 is a bronze plaque suitably mounted and pro- 

 vided with a silver plate for inscriptions and 

 was offered by Professor T. G. Alford. It ia 

 awarded each semester to the Greek-letter fra- 

 ternity making the best record in scholarship, 

 and must be won four times to give permanent 

 possession. It has so far been held by the 

 Delta Tau Delta, Phi Kappa Sigma, Sigma 

 Phi Epsilon and Kappa Sigma. 



In 1914, Professor James Troop offered a 

 silver cup for special and honorary fraternities 

 not eligible for the Alford trophy. This was 

 won in the spring of 1914 by Alpha Gamma 

 Eho, an agricultural fraternity. 



A somewhat uniform plan for recording the 

 monthly standing of their members was adopted 

 by the various clubs and fraternities, and in 

 general much more attention was paid to 

 scholarship than had hitherto been the case. 



Besides the standings given out by the 

 registrar's office in connection with the award- 

 ing of the trophies, decimal ratings for all 

 fraternity and club members are prepared by 

 the chairman of the committee on student 

 organizations and sent to the respective chap- 

 ters. Comparisons are made showing whether 

 the members and the chapter as a whole are 

 gaining or losing, and attention is called to 

 the standing relative to other organizations. 



As far as can be judged from the returns, 

 the various agencies mentioned have stimu- 



