430 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVII. No. 428 



Free lunches are a burden on the local com- 

 mittee that no visiting member should wish 

 to impose; scattered lunches interfere greatly 

 with the sociability of the meeting; distant 

 lunches take up too much time. A light 

 table d'hote lunch should, therefore, be pro- 

 vided at a moderate price in a good-sized and 

 well-ventilated room near the place of meet- 

 ing, every day while the sessions last. Sepa- 

 rate small lunch tables are preferable to n 

 single long table; service is much simplified 

 by having the dishes on a table at one end 

 of the room, where each member may quickly 

 help himself and then withdraw to enjoy the 

 lunch with a group 6f friends. The less the 

 formality and the greater the freedom of 

 movement, the better for the real enjoyment 

 of the noon hour. 



Formal dinners, such as the affiliated socie- 

 ties not infrequently hold and at which one 

 has to sit in one place for three or four hours, 

 are likely to be tiresome to one's neighbors. 

 Informal smokers, with a light supper served 

 from a side table and plenty of little tables 

 at which groups may easily form and break 

 up, afford much better opportunity for meet- 

 ing and chatting with old and new friends. 

 Besides, the dinners seem necessarily to in- 

 volve the conventionality of after-dinner 

 speaking, in which one is in danger of griev- 

 ing his friends with wide-of-the-mark efforts at 

 humor. The smokers are not yet habitually 

 given over to that form of festivity. 



Finally, a few remarks as to general ses- 

 sions. Most of them are tedious. There 

 seems to be a supposed necessity that the 

 association shall be welcomed by some repre- 

 sentative local authority, and that some officer 

 shall respond to this address in a preliminary 

 general session; but it would be interesting 

 to try the experiment of meeting once with- 

 out these formalities, in order to see if science 

 were any the less advanced thereby. This un- 

 conventional plan would at any rate have the 

 advantage of allowing the council to arrange 

 three or four, instead of only two, periods 

 in which the vice-presidential addresses could 

 be distributed, thus making it possible for 

 them to be heard by a much larger number of 

 members than is now the case; and this is 



certainly desirable, for many of the addresses 

 are of broad interest and should attract large 

 audiences. As to the brief general sessions 

 every morning of convocation week, they are 

 often very thinly attended; it must be but a 

 small pleasure to the president and the secre- 

 tary of the association to officiate at these 

 listless gatherings. Indeed the sectional lists 

 of papers are now so long that time can ill 

 be spared for daily general sessions. The 

 announcements that have been customarily 

 made at the general sessions — for example, the 

 hour and place of an excursion, or the names 

 of new members — can be much more effec- 

 tively made at the sectional meetings or in 

 the daily programs. The final general session, 

 at which the officers for the ensuing year and 

 the place of the next meeting are voted upon 

 or announced (whichever practice may now 

 be followed) and in which cut-and-dried votes 

 of thanks are passed in perfunctory fashion, 

 have become lifeless affairs, thanks to the 

 efficient work of the council. Few members 

 would be afflicted if even this final general 

 session were replaced by printed announce- 

 ments. The two general sessions in the even- 

 ing, to hear the retiring president's address 

 and the general scientific lecture, are on the 

 other hand of real value in advancing science, 

 and should be maintained. ' 



The intention of all these suggestions is to 

 make it possible for those who attend the 

 meetings of the association to spend their 

 time most effectively and comfortably. Con- 

 ventional formalities, bad air and distract- 

 ing gymnastic efforts at opening windows, 

 insufficient room and time for social inter- 

 course are unnecessary hindrances to the best 

 enjoyment of convocation week; and there is 

 no sufficient reason why many or all of these 

 hindrances should not be removed. 



W. M. Davis. 



Cambrtoge, Mass., 

 February 25, 1903. 



THE POLICY OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR 

 THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 



I HAVE attended many meetings of the 

 American Association for the Advancement 

 of Science and have watched with great in- 

 terest the progress that has been made — espe- 



