January 11, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



43 



The wide dispersal of American men of 

 science and the time of meeting are more 

 serious difficulties than the unification of 

 interests at the meetings. The solution will 

 probably be found in meetings at more 

 than one time in the year and at more than 

 one place. The association held this sum- 

 mer a most pleasant and profitable meeting 

 at Ithaca; it has authorized those sections 

 which so desire to hold meetings during 

 the summer of 1907, and plans a general 

 summer meeting in some New England 

 town in the summer of 1908. Two meet- 

 ings a year will partly solve the difficulties 

 of travel, for one of them would naturally 

 be held near the Atlantic seaboard and one 

 farther to the west. StiU, the time will 

 probably come when it will be desirable to 

 hold two or more meetings simultaneously 

 in different regions, having perhaps a gen- 

 eral congress of scientific men once in three 

 or five years. 



The association should be competent to 

 make the arrangements whenever and 

 wherever meetings of scientific men are 

 needed. There are many details, such as 

 railway transportation, which can be most 

 economically arranged at a central office, 

 and there should be in each center acad- 

 emies, societies or committees which stand 

 in relation to the association. The Smith- 

 sonian Institution or the Carnegie Institu- 

 tion should provide a central office for the 

 association, and if neither of these institu- 

 tions appreciates the privilege of doing 

 this, funds should be secured for a build- 

 ing. The council at New York passed an 

 important resolution instructing the com- 

 mittee on policy to report means by which 

 "the efficiency of the organization of the 



association may be increased and the office 

 of the permanent secretary made more im- 

 portant." There is every reason to believe 

 that the secretary of the association should 

 and will occupy an office at least equal in 

 usefulness, dignity and salary to the secre- 

 taryship of the Smithsonian Institution. 

 In this age and country it is a higher honor 

 to be directly responsible to the organized 

 body of American men of science than to 

 be subject to a board of regents or trustees, 

 the majority of whom have but a vague 

 conception of the methods and ideals of 

 science. 



The general secretary, in his report of 

 the meeting printed below, estimates the 

 attendance at not less than 1,500. This is 

 a safe estimate, for he tells us that while 

 106 members of Section C registered, the 

 attendance of chemists was estimated at 

 300. In so far as similar conditions hold 

 for other sections, this would indicate a 

 total attendance of about 2,700 scientific 

 men and women, and this figure would not 

 include the large number of local members 

 who attended some of the functions or ses- 

 sions without registering or the ladies who 

 accompanied members. This may be an 

 overestimate, but certainly the lecture 

 rooms of Columbia University were as a 

 rule crowded. Thus on Friday afternoon 

 people were standing and turned away 

 from the discussion before the naturalists 

 on 'The Biological Significance and 

 Control of Sex' and the address by Pro- 

 fessor "William James on 'Surplus Stores 

 of Energy. ' Yet each of the lecture rooms 

 holds about 300, and there were many 

 other meetings at the same time. There 

 were about 2,000 people at the exercises at 



