44 



SCIENCE. 



[N.S. Vol. XIX. No. 471. 



ing to its size, to the council, and has the 

 option of meeting with the association; its 

 members, even when not members of the 

 association, enjoy all the privileges of re- 

 duced rate of transportation, provision of 

 place of meeting, entertainments, etc., pro- 

 vided by the association. At the same time 

 the society retains its complete autonomy. 

 It can meet when and where it likes, and if 

 it meets with the association its scientific 

 program and other functions remain en- 

 tirely under its own control. The associa- 

 tion has been liberal and catholic in its 

 treatment of affiliated societies. For ex- 

 ample, at the meeting last week the So- 

 ciety of College Teachers of Education 

 and the Society for Horticultural Science 

 were admitted to affiliation. Some socie- 

 ties, as the American Chemical Society and 

 the American Physical Society^ met at St. 

 Louis in conjunction with the correspond- 

 ing sections of the association; others, as 

 the Geological Society of America and the 

 American Botanical Society, provided in- 

 dependent programs. No society that has 

 met several times with the association has 

 shown any disposition to separate itself 

 from it. Different societies may hold in- 

 dependent meetings in summer or even in 

 convocation week, but they will not break 

 an affiliation that has proved useful for 

 the society, for the association and for the 

 general progress of science. If any society 

 is unwilling to become affiliated with the 

 association, it is probably due to ignorance 

 of the conditions. 



The American Association, the Ameri- 

 can Society of Naturalists and about 

 twenty affiliated societies, including all 



those devoted to the physical sciences and 

 many of those devoted to the natural sci- 

 ences, met together at St. Louis. It was 

 believed by many members of the council 

 that it was undesirable to select St. Lotiis 

 as the place of meeting this winter. The 

 council has in recent years recommended 

 a place of meeting two years in advance. 

 When the meeting at St. Louis was first 

 discussed at Denver, it was supposed that 

 it would be last summer in connection 

 with the exposition. The exposition was 

 postponed for a year, and the association 

 changed its time of meeting to the winter. 

 It would probably have been wiser for the 

 association to have continued its summer 

 meetings, at least until the relative advan- 

 tages of winter and summer meetings had 

 become evident. If the association and 

 such of the affiliated societies as had 

 wished had met last summer at Ithaca, 

 this winter at Philadelphia and next sum- 

 mer at St. Louis in conjunction with the 

 Congress of Arts and Science, the condi- 

 tions would have been more satisfactory 

 than is the case at present. But at Wash- 

 ington the council of the association had 

 no definite knowledge of the congress of 

 the exposition, the chemists had met at 

 Philadelphia the year before, and no one 

 could have supposed that the eastern 

 branch of the Zoological Society and other 

 biological societies would have met at 

 Philadelphia, when it was known that the 

 association would meet there next year. 

 Scientific societies, like national govern- 

 ments, have a way of muddling through; 

 but it is surely reasonable to suppose that 

 men of science should be the first to 



