274 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. VIII. No. 193. 



Treasurer : E. S. Woodward. 

 Vice-Presidents : 



Section A. Alexander MacFarlane. 



Section B. Elihu Thomson. 



Section C. F. P. Venable. 



Section D. Storm Bull. 



Section E. J. F. Whiteaves. 



Section F. Simon H. Gage. 



Section G. Charles E. Barnes. 



Section H. Thomas Wilson. 



Section I. Marcus Benjamin. 

 Secretaries of Sections : 



Section A. John F. Hayford. 



Section B. William Hallock. 



Section 0. H. A. Weber. 



Section D. James M. Porter. 



Section E. Arthur Hollick. 



Section F. Frederick W. True. 



Section G. W. A. Hellerman. 



Section H. George A. Dorsey. 



Section I. Calvin M. Woodward. 



James McMahon, 

 General Secretary. 



A GREETING TO THE AMERICAN ASSOCIA- 

 TION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF 

 SCIENCE* 



To the greetings which have been so coi'- 

 dially offered to you in behalf of the State 

 and of the City it is my privilege to add a 

 few words of welcome from the Institute, 

 which is honored by your visit to-day. 



You have not often favored us with your 

 company, for you waited until the 29th year 

 of the foundation of the Association before 

 you held your first Boston meeting. Now 

 twenty-one more years have elapsed before 

 you visit us again, and we are pleased that 

 it should be for the purpose of holding 

 your semicentennial anniversary in this 

 city. 



If your visits, like those of angels, are 

 rare they are all the more highly prized, 



*By President J. M. Crafts, Massachusetts Insti- 

 tute of Technology, at the opening session, August 

 22, 1898. 



and many of us feel that we must make the 

 most of this one, because we may not, in the 

 course of nature, hope to live to see you 

 with us again, if your orbit is fixed by the 

 intervals of your past appearances. While 

 saying that you waited twenty-nine years 

 before making your first call upon us, it 

 should be added that long ago, in 1849, the 

 second meeting of the Association was held 

 in Cambridge, and that the Bostonians had 

 the advantage of participating in that meet- 

 ing in the same way that now our good 

 neighbors of Cambridge and of other near 

 places join in welcoming you to this one. 



At the date of the Cambridge meeting Har- 

 vard College was 213 years old, and the in- 

 stitutions of Boston and of the neighborhood 

 which now have the honor of greeting you 

 were unborn and unthought of. Since that 

 time Tufts College, Boston College, the Mas- 

 sachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston 

 University and Wellesley, naming them in 

 the order of their foundation, have grown 

 up like young plants, and, notwithstanding 

 the rapid increase of Harvard University, 

 thej' surpass it at present in the number of 

 their students. The total adds up to aearly 

 8,000 students and more than 800 teachers, 

 about the same number as at the University 

 of Paris. 



It would be a poor greeting to deluge you 

 with statistics, but I trust you will pardon 

 these few, which are meant to show that 

 since j'ou have visited us we have been dili- 

 gently occupied in preparing a fitting audi- 

 ence to meet your second, or rather your 

 third coming.for the teachers and students in 

 these colleges have come in larger part ft-om 

 New England, and particularlj' from this 

 neighborhood, and, their education finished, 

 they have remained in their New England 

 homes, and whatever has clung to them of 

 their college life is potent in shaping the 

 modes of thought of their community. 

 This center of education, then, is one of the 

 largest in the world, and it is eager to give 



