154 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLI. No. 1048 



it would not attempt to define the condi- 

 tions of eligibility for membership, but that 

 invitations to join in the formal organiza- 

 tion of the association should be sent to 

 persons of full professorial rank whose 

 names appeared on the lists of distin- 

 guished specialists prepared for the com- 

 mittee in each of the principal subjects, 

 provided that such professors were con- 

 nected with institutions having five or more 

 names upon these lists. Some 650 of those 

 to whom these invitations were sent have 

 thus far expressed their sympathy with the 

 general purposes formulated in the circu- 

 lar of the committee on organization, and 

 their purpose to adhere to the association. 

 In accordance with the action above re- 

 ported, members of the university teaching 

 profession who did not receive invitations 

 to the New York meeting, and who desire 

 to become members of the Association, are 

 asked to signify that desire to any of their 

 colleagues who are already charter mem- 

 bers or who may become such during the 

 period allowed for that purpose — the first 

 three months of the present year. 



A. 0. LOVEJOT, 



Seci-etary 

 Johns Hopkins University 



TBE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOB TEE 



ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE 



SAFETY ENGINEEBINGT- 



The address which forms part of the 

 duty each year of your successive chair- 

 men might have for its unvarying subject 

 the newest subdivision of the engineer's 

 field, since each year seems to furnish a 

 new title to our lengthening list of engi- 

 neering specialists. 



One of the late differentiations calls at- 



1 Address of the vice-president and chairman of 

 Section D of the American Association for the 

 Advancement of Science, Philadelphia, Decem- 

 ber 31, 1914. 



tention to the field of safety engineering, 

 and I bring to your attention some phases 

 of this work. This portion of the field of 

 engineering can not be said to involve any 

 radically new fact or discovery, but to be 

 rather a new grouping of interests as a re- 

 sult of a change of accent among the many 

 industrial factors. In developing any engi- 

 neering design there is usually a compro- 

 mise between prime factors which dominate 

 the result and minor factors which receive 

 less accent; so also in industrial life such 

 prime factors as production, cost, profits, 

 expansion, etc., have heretofore received 

 the greater accent, while the item of safety 

 of the employee and the public, which has 

 always been a factor in design and in man- 

 agement, has oftentimes been given rela- 

 tively small weight. There is a rapidly 

 growing feeling that every industry should 

 receive its workers each day in fit condi- 

 tion and should return them to their homes 

 whole and in like fit condition. Strong ac- 

 cent is now being given to this idea, which 

 has resulted in a movement of very con- 

 siderable momentum, and this change in 

 accent is finding its expression in various 

 legislation, in workmen's compensation 

 acts, in the whole safety movement, includ- 

 ing the work of safety engineering. Safety 

 engineering has for its object the elimina- 

 tion of industrial accidents. While the re- 

 sult of such an accident was borne largely 

 by the injured individual, the prevention 

 of accidents remained more or less of a 

 minor factor in indvistrial problems, but as 

 the industry is required to carry directly 

 a larger share of the burden resulting from 

 accident, the problem has become one of 

 prime importance. Bach engineer, me- 

 chanical, electrical, civil and mining, is now 

 asked to view his work from a new angle. 

 Guards, guides and protective devices are 

 added where it was perfectly evident these 

 devices should have been before, but it be- 



