July 19, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



75 



Resolved, That all schools having courses for 

 the training of teachers should give instruction in 

 (a) personal and school hygiene and (6) the prin- 

 ciples and practise of physical training, and that 

 each of these subjects should be given as much 

 time as the major subjects in the course. 



Resolved, That examinations for licenses to 

 teach should include questions upon these subjects, 

 and that the answers to such questions should be 

 given equal weight with the answers to questions 

 upon any other subjects. 



The officers elected for the ensuing year 

 were: 



Bon. President — Theodore Roosevelt. 



President — Dr. Henry P. Walcott. 



Vice-President — Dr. Arthur T. Cabot. 



Secretary-Treasurer — Dr. Thomas A. Storey. 



Memhers of Council for One Year — John A. 

 Bergstrora, Ph.D., Elmer E. Brown, Ph.D., W. H. 

 Burnham, Ph.D., John J. Cronin, M.D., Abraham 

 Jacobi, M.D., LL.D., W. H. Maxwell, A.M., LL.D., 

 John H. Musser, M.D., John Ridlon, M.D., Myles 

 Standish, M.D., H. P. Walcott, A.B., M.D. 



Members of Council for Two Years — Walter E. 

 Fernald, M.D., C. Harrington, A.B., M.D., C. N. 

 Kendall, A.M., Geo. H. Martin, LL.D., J. H. 

 lileCulluni, M.D., J. H. MeCurdy, M.D., C. A. 

 Moore, Edw. L. Stevens, L.H.D., J. J. Storrow, 

 Edw. Lee Thorndike, Ph.D. 



Members of Council for Three Years — Champe 

 S. Andrews, Nicholas M. Butler, A.M., LL.D., 

 Litt.D., Arthur T. Cabot, M.D., Frederick Forch- 

 heimer, M.D., W. E. Fischel, M.D., L. H. Guliek, 

 M.D., M.P.E., C. W. Hetherington, Ph.D., Geo. L. 

 Meylan, A.M., M.D., Thos. A. Storey, Ph.D., M.D., 

 William H. Welch, M.D., LL.D. 



Henry P. Bowditch, M.D., professor of phys- 

 iology in the Harvard Medical School was 

 unanimously elected first honorary member of 

 the association. Thomas A. Storey, 



Secretary 



CoiiEGE OF THE CiTY OF XeW YoBK 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE 



" POPULAR " SCIENCE 



In a recent communication,' Mrs. Franklin 

 enters a timely protest against the pseudo-sci- 

 ence of the popular magazines. Every investi- 

 gator of color vision must agree with Mrs. 

 Franklin that Dr. Ayers's conception of color- 



• Science, N. S., XXV., May 10, 1907, p. 746. 



blindness — as jpresented in the April Century 

 — " belongs to the class of the antiquated and 

 the non-scientific." And a more recent paper 

 in the same magazine by Professor Stratton, 

 of the Johns Hopkins University, is equally 

 defective and misleading. 



Under the title " Eailway Disasters at 

 Night " Professor Stratton discusses a topic 

 which has aroused wide-spread popular interest. 

 The author describes various real and fictitious 

 defects of color vision, and from this sweeping 

 condemnation of the color sense he infers that 

 the " space sense " is more worthy of being 

 entrusted with the responsibility of an accu- 

 rate discrimination of signals. Accordingly, 

 he recommends the disuse of the present sys- 

 tem of railway signaling by means of colored 

 lights, and advocates the substitution of illu- 

 minated semaphores which shall appeal to the 

 " space sense." The author's argument cen- 

 ters around the problem of color vision, and 

 it is chiefly to his discussion of this topic that 

 exception must be taken. Most of the errors 

 contained in the paper must be ignored in this 

 brief communication; but I shall venture to 

 call attention to two or three points which 

 may have escaped the notice of the casual 

 reader. 



Among the reasons assigned by Professor 

 Stratton for the alleged failure of colored sig- 

 nals is the following startling disclosure: 



The limitations of the normal ej'e are, however, 

 not yet fully told. Even when it looks with fair 

 accuracy at them, it is always at a disadvantage 

 with regard to colors at night. The eye, grown 

 accustomed to darkness, becomes exceedingly sensi- 

 tive to faint lights, but it no longer detects their 

 proper colors : " in the dusk all cats are gray." 

 At nightfall a strange kind of second-sight comes 

 in to supplement the vision of common day, now 

 baffled ; but this owl-sight of the human eye is able 

 to catch bare light and shade and form, and is 

 blind to the hue of things. 



Now if the human retina really were color- 

 blind at night, as Professor Stratton believes, 

 he would undoubtedly have an argument 

 against the present system of night signals; 

 but he would be confronted by the difficulty 

 of explaining how a night express ever reaches 

 its destination in safety — since its safety 



