August 21, 1903.] 



SCIENCE. 



241 



more and more into the deliberations of 

 our organization as a national court of ap- 

 peal in such issues. The association truly 

 has a solemil duty to perform in keeping 

 in touch with the changing social and edu- 

 cational conditions in our national life and 

 in seeing to it that the interests of psychol- 

 ogy are adjusted to them. In spite of the 

 experimental showing made in our sta- 

 tistical studies above, somewhere answer 

 must be found for the questions persistently 

 raised by the fact that the laboratory of 

 psychology has not held its men like the 

 other types of laboratory developed by 

 science. 



All these and several other vital ques- 

 tions relating to the efficiency of the asso- 

 ciation must be passed over to give place 

 for a final suggestion. I doubt whether any 

 person outside the council ever reads the 

 reports dutifully presented by the treas- 

 urer. At the close of ten years we are in 

 possession of a fund of some sixteen hun- 

 dred dollars. The current expenses of the 

 organization being kept reduced to a 

 nominal minimum, the fund receives at the 

 present rate an annual accumulation of 

 nearly four hundred dollars. Should this 

 rate of increase continue, the fund will be 

 almost doubled in four years. Herein the 

 association finds itself happily invested 

 with both an obligation and an opportunity. 

 This fund should be so administered as to 

 yield the most stimulating returns in in- 

 fluence upon the growth of our science, es- 

 pecially in America. This can be done, 

 not by burj'ing or dissipating it in minor 

 projects, worthy perhaps in their way and 

 for the time being, but only by aiming high. 

 The best effort the a.ssociation can make 

 seems to me to lie in the direction of estab- 

 lishing a Prize Gold Medal in psychology 

 —a suggestion for which I take pleasure in 

 thanking our president. The interest in- 



come of our fund four years hence M'ould 

 be sufficient to warrant the awarding of 

 the medal every three yeai-s, or four at 

 most. This medal should be awarded by 

 the association only for the best piece of 

 work done in psj-chology, either in research 

 or in some other specific mode of advancing 

 its multiple interests. The association 

 might control the direction of the im- 

 mediate!}' future psychological thinking 

 by setting a prize problem, or it might 

 stimulate general efficiency on the part of 

 psychologists by selecting the best work in 

 unspecified lines for the high honor going 

 with the medal distinction. The field of 

 competition might be restricted to Ameri- 

 can psychologists, or left open to the world. 

 This prize gold medal might even be desig- 

 nated by the honored name of some past or 

 present American psychologist. But my 

 suggestion does not include a dyaft of rules 

 regulating the award of the medal. It 

 remains for me only to express my deep 

 conviction that more enthiisiasm and in- 

 spiration would be infused into American 

 psychology through such a foundation, 

 which is perfectly possible, than through 

 any other detailed project that could be 

 suggested at the present time. Its great 

 virtue resides in the fact that it would 

 keep each worker looking forward and up- 

 ward, and that through it the association 

 would do a thing of great and lasting 

 moment. 



Edward Franklin Buchner. 

 University of Alabama. 



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