June 22, 1906.] 



SCIENCE. 



957 



association held both a summer and a winter 

 meeting in 1850, but thereafter until 1902 

 held a single meeting, usually in the month of 

 August. The useful work of the association 

 reached a culminating point some twenty-five 

 years since. At the meetings held in Boston, 

 Montreal and Philadelphia, in 1880, 1882 and 

 1884, the attendance was between 900 and 

 1,000. But thereafter there was a decline, 

 until the attendance at Springfield, Buffalo 

 and Detroit, in 1895, 1896 and 1897, was 368, 

 333 and 268. The Boston meeting of 1898, 

 celebrating the fiftieth anniversary, was large, 

 but on the whole the association was losing 

 ground. This was mainly due to the increased 

 specialization of science and the formation of 

 societies for the different sciences. 



The American Society of Naturalists was 

 organized in 1883 to hold winter meetings 

 limited to professional students of science. 

 The special societies subsequently formed for 

 different natural sciences held meetings in 

 affiliation with the Naturalists, and these 

 meetings were nearly as large and had prob- 

 ably more valuable scientific programs than 

 the summer meetings of the association. An 

 American Mathematical Society was also 

 organized, holding its annual meetings at 

 Christmas, and the societies formed later for 

 physics and astronomy tended to affiliate with 

 it. The special societies had a more compact 

 organization than the American Association, 

 due to their professional membership coming 

 mainly from adjacent centers on the Atlantic 

 seaboard. The more amateur and scattering 

 membership of the association was thus em- 

 phasized. The association would have suf- 

 fered severely if it had not been for the affilia- 

 tion with the American Chemical Society. 



If the association were to remain the cen- 

 tral organization for the advancement and 

 diffusion of science it was necessary for it to 



enter into affiliation with the special societies, 

 and if its annual meetings were to be the 

 chief clearing-house for the scientific research 

 and scientific organization of the country it 

 was necessary to hold the principal meeting 

 in winter. If the association had not done 

 these two things one or more new combina- 

 tions of societies would have arisen, and they 

 would have worked more or less at cross pur- 

 poses with the association. There have nat- 

 urally been difficulties to overcome, but on the 

 whole the convocation week meetings have 

 justified themselves. There were nearly a 

 thousand members of the association and 

 probably fifteen hundred scientific men at the 

 Washington and the Philadelphia meetings. 



But the transfer of the meetings of the 

 association from simmier to winter left one 

 annual meeting where there had previously 

 been two, and this at a time when the mem- 

 bership of the association had more than 

 doubled. The large winter meetings do not 

 so much take the place of the summer meet- 

 ings as fill an entirely different function. It 

 may almost be said that they substitute busi- 

 ness for pleasure. 



It is fortunate that the association now 

 finds itself strong enough to supply both. 

 Nothing can be pleasanter than a summer 

 meeting in a university town amid beautiful 

 surroundings, and Ithaca and Cornell supply 

 ideal conditions. In addition to the regular 

 programs of scientific papers addresses of gen- 

 eral interest are promised, and excursions cer- 

 tain to be both enjoyable and profitable have 

 been arranged. The new physical laboratories 

 of Cornell University will be formally opened 

 and Sigma Xi will celebrate the twentieth 

 anniversary of its foundation. No more fa- 

 vorable opportunity will occur to see a great 

 university, to visit a region both beautiful 

 and scientifically interesting, to listen to spe- 



