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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIX. No. 996 



fore the board' of trustees," beyond that con- 

 tained in the letter above cited. In view of these 

 circumstances the committee finds itself unable to 

 suppose that the decisive reason for President 

 Warfield's reluctance to answer its inquiries is his 

 consideration for the interests and wishes of Pro- 

 fessor Mecklin. The committee notes, moreover, 

 that two out of the three questions last laid before 

 President Warfield asked for information, not 

 about the resignation of Professor Mecklin, but 

 about the general policy of the college and the spe- 

 cific credal requirements attaching to the professor- 

 ship of philosophy and psychology. These in- 

 quiries, also, President Warfield has declined to 

 answer. He intimates, indeed, that he regards it 

 as improper for persons not connected with the col- 

 lege to ask, or for him to answer, ' ' questions con- 

 cerning the college or its members." 



The attitude thus assumed does not seem to this 

 committee one which can with propriety be main- 

 tained by the officers of any college or university 

 towards the inquiries of a representative national 

 organization of college and university teachers and 

 other scholars. We believe it to be the right of 

 the general body of professors of philosophy and 

 psychology to know definitely the conditions of the 

 tenure of any professorship in their subject; and 

 also their right, and that of the public to which 

 colleges look for support, to understand unequiv- 

 ocally what measure of freedom of teaching is 

 granted in any college, and to be informed as to 

 the essential details of any case in which credal 

 restrictions, other than those to which the college 

 officially stands committed, are publicly declared 

 by responsible persons to have been imposed. No 

 college does well to live unto itself to such a degree 

 that it fails to recognize that in all such issues the 

 university teaching profession at large has a legit- 

 imate concern. And any college hazards its claim 

 upon the confidence of the public and the friendly 

 regard of the teaching profession by an appear- 

 ance of unwillingness to make a full and frank 

 statement of the facts in all matters of this sort. 



The report is published in full in the Jour- 

 nal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific 

 Methods for January 29, 1914. 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS 

 Dr. Calvin Milton Woodward, emeritus pro- 

 fessor of mathematics and applied mechanics 

 and dean of the school of engineering and 

 architecture of Washington University, past 



president of the American Association for the 

 Advancement of Science, of the board of 

 regents of the University of Missouri and of 

 the St. Louis Board of Education, died from 

 apoplexy on January 12, aged seventy-seven 

 years. 



Sir David Gill, the distinguished British 

 astronomer, for many years astronomer at the 

 Cape of Good Hope, died on January 24, at 

 the age of seventy years. 



Colonel Willum C. Goegas has been nomi- 

 nated to be surgeon-general of the army of the 

 United States, with the rank of brigadier- 

 general. 



Dr. S. S. Goldwater has been appointed 

 commissioner of health for New York City to 

 succeed Dr. Ernst J. Lederle. 



Charles W. Eliot, president emeritus of 

 Harvard university, had been elected a trustee 

 of the Eockefeller Foundation for the term 

 of three years. 



Dr. J. S. Haldane, reader in physiology at 

 Oxford, has been chosen as Silliman lecturer 

 at Yale University for next year. 



The organizing committee, selected by the 

 American members of the international com- 

 mittee of the Second International Eugenics 

 Congress, has met in New York City and 

 unanimously elected Dr. Henry Fairfield 

 Osborn as president of the congress. Dr. 

 Alexander Graham Bell was elected honorary 

 president. The congress will be held in New 

 York City near the end of September, 1915. 



Professor Andrew C. McLaughlin, head of 

 the department of history in the University 

 of Chicago, was elected president of the Ameri- 

 can Historical Association at its recent meet- 

 ing in Charleston, South Carolina. 



At the recent annual meeting of the Ameri- 

 can Anthropological Association held in New 

 York City, Professor Roland B. Dixon, of 

 Harvard University, was reelected president; 

 and Professors Franz Boas, of Columbia Uni- 

 versity, and George Grant MacCurdy, of Yale 

 University, were designated to represent the 

 association at the International Congress of 

 Americanists, to be held in Washington, D. C, 

 October 5 to 10, 1914. 



