Makch 6, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



363 



had to be faced whether the Society of 

 Naturalists should become a strictly zoolog- 

 ical assembly, should be allowed to lapse, 

 or should continue to exist as a possible 

 bond of union between the specialist socie- 

 ties. The tertium quid seemed the most 

 satisfactory solution of the difficulty and 

 the secession of the zoologists as the Amer- 

 ican Morphological Society gave oppor- 

 tunity for the reorganization of the Nat- 

 uralists as a parent society beneath whose 

 wing the several offspring might assemble 

 yearly for mutual encouragement and fel- 

 lowship. This new relation of the society 

 of necessity curtailed its activities by re- 

 ducing the time available for its sessions, 

 but it still remained faithful to its original 

 purpose, as it does to-day. 



But additional factors came into the 

 question. The rapid growth of the scien- 

 tific spirit in the middle west which began 

 in the later eighties and the nineties, one 

 of the most striking features, it may be 

 remarked in passing, in our educational 

 history, called to that section of the coun- 

 try many enthusiastic naturalists who felt 

 the need of maintaining just those wider 

 interests which the society endeavored to 

 promote. The society then had to deter- 

 mine whether it would extend its influence 

 to this new territory and hold occasional 

 meetings outside the pale of the north- 

 eastern states, but at the time it seemed that 

 the limitations of the sessions to localities 

 readily accessible to the majority of the 

 members would better tend to conserve the 

 energies of the society. It was recom- 

 mended, however, that the naturalists of 

 the central states should form a branch 

 organization, which would do for that sec- 

 tion of the country what the parent society 

 did for the eastern territory, and this was 

 done. But the growth of the scientific 

 spirit in the more western section was not 

 yet completed, nor is it even now. And 

 with the increasing growth there arose a 



greater community of interests and more 

 perfect intercourse between the two sec- 

 tions, leading eventually to the realization 

 that occasional meetings of the one organ- 

 ization in the territory of the other, far 

 from having a weakening influence, would 

 further the objects for which both were 

 striving. Hence the present arrangement, 

 which, however, still requires modification 

 in one respect, namely, in that of placing 

 the Central Branch in the position to which 

 its importance and influence entitle it— 

 an equality with the parent organization. 

 A second factor of more recent develop- 

 ment has been the irruption of the Amer- 

 ican Association for the Advancement of 

 Science into the quiet and sociable serenity 

 of convocation week, and the consequent 

 desire on the part of some that the asso- 

 ciation should assume responsibility for all 

 the fostering which the different scientific 

 societies may require. Personally, I am 

 not at all sure that the association as a 

 mother by adoption can satisfactorily per- 

 form the functions of the real parent. In 

 a family, real and adopted, so large and 

 with such diverse interests, it seems almost 

 certain that one or more unfortunate indi- 

 viduals may find themselves unable to se- 

 cure the necessary shelter beneath the ma- 

 ternal wings and be forced to perch dis- 

 consolate upon the edge of the nest, "re- 

 mote, unfriended, melancholy. ' ' A grada- 

 tion of individualities is the rule in nature, 

 and in our social combinations. Between 

 the organ and the person there is an inter- 

 vening individuality and it is that indi- 

 viduality which is lacking in the organiza- 

 tion of the association, but which is repre- 

 sented by this society. The solidarity, 

 which is the fans et origo of the Natural- 

 ists is, I am well aware, the aim also of 

 those who desire absorption into the asso- 

 ciation, but under the present organization 

 of that body the solidarity of the biological 

 sciences would, by the absorption, be lost, 



