Makch 11, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



431 



■who has anything to present should have it 

 fully written out, he should not read it, but 

 should present a clear, oral summary of it. 

 He should have his matter so well in hand 

 that he can give the audience a good notion 

 of it in from five to ten minutes. Only on 

 rare occasions should any one be allowed to 

 take more than ten minutes, or read details 

 from his paper. In St. Louis I listened to 

 descriptions of details which were useless to 

 present to any audience, since no one could 

 follow them unless he had the object or a 

 drawing of it before him. On the other 

 hand, something should be said as to the duty 

 of listening patiently to what certain men 

 have to say. It is quite childish for men to 

 yawn or even to quit the room because they 

 are ' not interested ' in a particular topic. 

 Every man who is given a place on the pro- 

 gram is entitled to a respectful hearing. 



In regard to the time of meeting, I have 

 first of all one complaint to make in regard 

 to convocation week. When the matter was 

 first talked of I understood that it was to 

 come afier the Christmas New Year holidays. 

 In many states the state societies have raet 

 annually for many years during this week 

 between Christmas and New Year's. It is 

 desirable, if not absolutely necessary, that col- 

 lege and university professors should attend 

 these local meetings. When convocation 

 week was proposed, I supposed it was to fol- 

 low the week already preoccupied by the 

 state societies, but I find that this is not the 

 case, and every winter I must decide whether 

 to run away from the state meetings or to 

 omit the association meetings. Convocation 

 week should come a week later, or the state 

 meetings a week earlier, than now. 



As to whether we should meet twice a year 

 or only once, I am inclined to accept Dr. 

 Cattell's suggestion to have a big winter meet- 

 ing alternating with smaller and less formal 

 summer meetings. This will meet the geo- 

 graphical difiiculty by allowing the two meet- 

 ings to be held in widely separated parts of 

 the country. Thus when the winter meeting 

 is held in Philadelphia the summer meeting 

 preceding or following it might be held in 

 Minneapolis, Colorado Springs, Seattle or San 



ITrancisco. And so with a winter meeting in 

 New Orleans, the summer meeting might be 

 held in Portland (Maine or Oregon). I 

 rather like the idea of two meetings because 

 it helps to settle the geographical problems 

 which confront us. The New Englander can 

 scarcely be asked to go to San Prancisco, for 

 the distance is too great (although it is no 

 greater than for the Californian to go to 

 Boston). And we can not be expected to 

 hold winter meetings in our far northern 

 cities, nor summer meetings in the south. 

 The two-meeting plan is a good one for this 

 reason. 



Lastly, it is evident that this will require 

 a great deal of careful planning, in order that 

 these beneficial results may follow. It will be 

 necessary to fix upon the places of meeting 

 several years in advance, and also to decide 

 upon the general features of the section pro- 

 grams a year or so before the meetings. 



Charles E. Bessey. 



The University of Nebeaska. 



It has seemed to me that in one respect the 

 American Association for the' Advancement 

 of Science is drifting in an unfortunate direc- 

 tion, namely, away from its historic policy of 

 attempting to keep in close touch with the 

 general public and the younger students. A 

 person who has had some scientific training 

 and is interested in the work of the associa- 

 tion has usually been admitted to membership 

 if he desired to join. I believe the encourage- . 

 ment to the young student has been invalu- 

 able. It has brought young and inexperi- 

 enced persons into close association with older 

 men who are experienced investigators. The 

 mere association and contact of the inexperi- 

 enced with the experienced investigator has a 

 great educational value for the former and it 

 serves in addition to stimulate his ambition 

 and to give him an opportunity to put in a 

 word in the discussions or to offer his 

 ' maiden ' speech or paper, either one of which 

 gives him better command of his scientific 

 thought and is an encouragement to investi- 

 gation on his part, with an ambition to offer 

 something- more worthy another time. For- 

 merly there was great public interest in the 



