134 



SCIENCE. 



[\roL. VIII. , No. 184 



total group of children that is intrusted to the 

 care of the teacher. He is held by the teacher, 

 and then passed on to another again as a fraction, 

 and not as an integer. Does he not lose much, as 

 well as gain, by this system? As regards his 

 health, he loses that defence which the sympathy 

 of the community always extends to that indi- 

 vidual who is suffering conspicuously. Taken 

 generally, all children in school are suffering 

 from discomfort. Average this discomfort among 

 ten thousand, and it may not be very great for 

 each one ; but a class of fifty children is not made 

 / up of fifty averages. 



THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION AS A MIS- 

 SIONARY BODY. 



Two years ago we published some statistics con- 

 cerning the membership of the American associa- 

 tion wliich were somewhat curious. The figures 

 then given dealt simj)ly with the geographical 

 distribution of the members ; and they showed, 

 among other things, that one-third of the associa- 

 tion came from the states of New York and 

 Massachusetts. If the north-eastern states, that 

 is, New England and the Atlantic states to the 

 Virginia line, had been counted, it would have 

 been found that these included fully three-fifths 

 of the association. 



It could also be shown that during the last ten 

 yeai's, when only four of the ten meetings have been 

 held in the north-eastern states, the average at- 

 tendance of members from this section has been 

 53 per cent of the whole attendance, increased to 

 76 per cent when the meetings have been held 

 within its own territory. It has even been larger 

 than the territorial representation in two instances, 

 as at the St. Louis meeting of 1878, wiien it was 

 larger than the representation of all the states 

 west of the Mississippi ; and at the Montreal 

 meeting of 1882, when it was five times as large 

 as the entire Canadian membership present. At 

 the other extra-territorial meetings, where its 

 proportion of the total attendance has varied from 

 24 per cent to 37 per cent, it has easily held the 

 second place, though falling below the local repre- 

 sentation of large areas. Indeed, the representa- 

 tion of no other section, excepting of the northern 

 states lying east of the Mississippi and west of the 

 Atlantic states, ever has more than a passing im- 

 portance, viz., when the meeting is held in that 

 section. Thus Canada's representation has never 

 been more than 3 per cent of the whole in any 

 meetings of the last ten years, excepting in 1883, 

 when it was held in Montreal and the percentage 

 rose to 14 per cent ; the next year however it fell 



to 2 per cent, and, omitting 1882, the average has 

 been less than 2 per cent. In this same period 

 the statess west of the Mississippi have averaged a 

 little more than 4 per cent, and have never 

 reached 6 per cent, excepting when the meeting 

 was held at St. Louis in 1878, when it rose to 31 per 

 cent, and at Minneapolis in 1-883, when it was 

 15 per cent. The southern states have done 

 better than this, for at the Nashville meeting in 

 1877 their average was 57 per cent of the whole, 

 and though at no other time (even at St. Louis) 

 have they exceeded 12 per cent, their general 

 average, apart from the Nashville meeting, has 

 been over 6 per cent. 



It is, however, a matter of practical impor- 

 tance, in deciding where a meeting shall be held, 

 to know how large a general attendance of mem- 

 bers to expect, and here the statistics show some 

 further significant facts. The general proportion 

 of members in attendance to total membership 

 during the past ten years has been 30i per cent, 

 but the proportion has varied enormously, as may 

 be seen by the following serial figures, from 1876 

 down : Buffalo 25 per cent ; Nashville 17 per 

 cent ; St. Louis 14 per cent ; Saratoga 25 per cent ; 

 Boston 63 per cent ; Cincinnati 27 per cent ; 

 Montreal 48 ; Minneapolis 20 per cent ; Philadel- 

 IDhia 49 per cent ; Ann Arbor 17 per cent. While 

 it should not be forgotten that it is one part of the 

 association's work to look upon the meetings as in 

 some sort a missionary enterprise, neither should 

 it be overlooked, when it is asked to hold an un- 

 due proportion of its meetings away from the 

 centres where it gains its main financial and. 

 moral support, that such assemblies are held in 

 partibus infideliiim. 



It might be sagacious to institute an inquiry as 

 to the length of time for which new members, 

 gathered in from the disti-ict immediately surround- 

 ing a place of meeting, are held. That member- 

 ship changes largely from year to year is a well 

 known fact ; that it is largely recruited from the 

 places where the nieetmgs are held is sufficiently 

 obvious to any constant attendant. But what 

 shall we say when we discover that Buffalo, which 

 a month hence can point to itself with pride as 

 the only city vvhich has harbored the association 

 for a third time ; that Buffalo, situated in the 

 region which these statistics have shown is most 

 favorable for science, where two or three local 

 societies for the cultivation of the natural sciences 

 have sprung up, where scientific periodicals have 

 found a home and a patronage ; that Buffalo, re- 

 nowned for its hospitality to science, literature, 

 and art, where ten short years ago the association 

 was enlarged by nearly one hundred and fifty 

 members, twenty-five of them its own citizens, — 



