January 29, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



193 



this country. To be elected a member was 

 a certificate of scientific standing. Its first 

 president, William B. Rogers, was equally well 

 known as a physicist and as a geologist, and 

 the day of close specialization had not yet 

 begun. The formation of the National Acad- 

 emy during the civil war was not undertaken 

 with a view to organizing any more select 

 body of investigators, but rather for utilitarian 

 purposes. To be selected as a scientific ad- 

 viser for the government was a high honor, 

 but it seems not to have interfered with the 

 loyalty of any member to the national asso- 

 ciation. At the memorable Albany meeting 

 in 1851 about 27 per cent, of the total mem- 

 bership of 769 were present. At the Wash- 

 ington meeting in December, 1902, about 27 

 per cent, of the total membership of 3,596 

 were present. 



That difllerentiation should result from in- 

 creasing growth was naturally to be expected. 

 In 1875 the first division into two sections was 

 made, the total membership being still only 

 807. It was at the Saratoga meeting in 1879 

 that the policy of popularijiing the association 

 seems to have been inaugurated, the barriers 

 to membership, in the form of recognized sci- 

 entific credentials, being in great measure re- 

 moved. The next meeting, held in Boston, 

 was attended by 997 persons, and the total 

 membership was increased to 1,555. At the 

 Cincinnati meeting in 1881, although the at- 

 tendance was but half that of the Boston 

 meeting, it was decided to break up into nine 

 sections. Already a serious source of em- 

 barrassment had sprung into existence in the 

 form of an invasion of cranks. About the 

 same time was noticed the absence of a num- 

 ber of members of the National Academy who 

 had formerly been regular attendants^ To 

 guard against the admission of papers by ill- 

 balanced or ignorant persons it was necessary 

 to form committees of inspection whose duty 

 it should be to suppress such papers, a simi- 

 mary of each being required before it could 

 be presented to any section. The laxity in 

 regard to admission soon became such as to 

 develop the wide-spread impression that any- 

 body of either sex could be elected to member- 



ship by exhibiting willingness to pay the usual 

 fees. 



If the term scientific aristocracy is admis- 

 sible at all it was applicable to the association 

 in its earlier days. The rapid change to de- 

 mocracy after the Saratoga meeting produced 

 dissatisfaction among many, and this was 

 manifested in the formation of the American 

 Chemical Society as an offshoot. "The inter- 

 est of its members was very perceptibly with- 

 drawn for a time from Section C, although 

 afiiliation was claimed. One after another of 

 these affiliated societies has since been formed, 

 until their number now considerably exceeds 

 the number of sections of the parent associa- 

 tion. Where the affiliated society has a field 

 identical with that of a section of the associa- 

 tion the two usually meet together, as a matter 

 of courtesy, but division is still perceptible. 

 The American Physical Society, for example, 

 has four meetings each year, the agreement 

 being that one of them shall be held in con- 

 junction with Section B of the association and 

 the others usiially in New York. The chief 

 reason alleged for the formation of the Phys- 

 ical Society was that many of the leading 

 physicists of the country could not be induced 

 to attend the meetings of the larger associa- 

 tion on account of the lack of discrimination 

 in its make-up. It has been repeatedly notice- 

 able that some of the most active members of 

 the Physical Society were absent from the 

 joint meetings. No ground for criticism is 

 implied in such a statement. Every one is 

 perfectly free to attend only such meetings 

 as are found attractive, and an appeal based 

 on loyalty to the parent association can never 

 be effective, especially now that the number of 

 gatherings is so great that nobody can attend 

 them all. 



The tendency toward disintegration of the 

 growingly unwieldy national association is 

 not due merely to increasing diversity of in- 

 terests or undue liberality in admitting those 

 who are not specialists. The great size of 

 our country and the consequent expense in- 

 volved in long journeys make the conditions 

 essentially different from those which seem to 

 have maintained the unity of the British Asso- 

 ciation. Reduced rates on the railroads can 



