290 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XX. No. 505. 



published, Science reprinted the imposing 

 list of participants for those departments 

 which stand nearest to the interests of the 

 magazine. 



Since the program with the names of 

 the hundred and sixty departmental and 

 sectional chairmen and the three hundred 

 and twenty official speakers has been pub- 

 lished, only a few changes and additions 

 have occurred in that part of the prepara- 

 tions. To be sure, some of the foreign 

 speakers were obliged to withdraw at this 

 late hour, but in most cases the cable filled 

 quickly the vacancies with well-known sub- 

 stitutes from the same countries. In two 

 or three cases two sections have been fused 

 into one in accordance with special wishes. 

 The few positions of chairman which ap- 

 peared still vacant in the printed program 

 have since been filled; the chairmen are 

 without exception Americans. Among the 

 speakers about a third are foreigners, rep- 

 resenting all countries important in scholar- 

 ship. Even Japan fills four important 

 places. Canadians and Mexicans are 

 counted as Americans. 



In two respects the official list has since 

 been supplemented. Firstly, each section 

 has now its special secretary; and the 

 honorary list of the hundred and thirty 

 secretaries will be published in the Septem- 

 ber edition of the program. Further, 

 most of the sections have an additional ar- 

 ray of shorter contributions. As the intro- 

 duction of the program said from the start, 

 every sectional meeting should offer not 

 only the two official addresses which form a 

 part of the interrelated plan, but also 

 some shorter contributions and communica- 

 tions by well-known specialists on special 

 problems dictated by their own interests 

 without immediate relation to the unity of 

 the program. The official address on the 

 problems of the section forms the natural 

 transition to such special papers exemplify- 

 ing the work of to-day in the field of the 



section. The invitations for such shorter 

 contributions have been sent out at the sug- 

 gestions of the different chairmen, and the 

 chairmen themselves had been chosen at the 

 suggestion of a majority of workers in the 

 special field. But in most sections there is 

 still ample room for any interesting short 

 communication to be offered and any one 

 may enter into negotiations with the chair- 

 man of the section to which his paper would 

 belong. In those sections in which the 

 time will not be entirely filled by the short 

 papers discussions will be in order. 



An important problem has been the dis- 

 tribution of halls for the meetings. The 

 temporal distribution of the proceedings 

 had already been sketched in the appendix 

 of the program, and it may be said here, by 

 the way, that everybody can get the pro- 

 gram by sending his address to Mr. Howard 

 J. Rogers, Director of Congresses, World's 

 Fair, St. Louis. This appendix indicated 

 the effort to avoid, as far as possible, every 

 conflict between sections of related inter- 

 ests. Every participant can attend on 

 Tuesday the meetings of three departments 

 and in the following foiir days the meet- 

 ings of eight sections, of which each fills 

 a forenoon from ten to one o'clock or an 

 afternoon from three to six. In this way 

 sixteen sections always meet at the same 

 time, but hardly ever sections of the same 

 larger department. On Wednesday, Sep- 

 tember 21, from ten to one there Avill be 

 meetings for instance of the following six- 

 teen sections: Metaphysics, history of 

 Greece, history of common law, comparative 

 language, Slavic literature, inorganic chem- 

 istry, astrometry, geophysics, meteorology, 

 animal morphology, social structure, public 

 health, otology, civil engineering, public 

 finance and the family. There is hardly a 

 serious conflict of interests. The philoso- 

 pher, for instance, has on that morning 

 inerely his one section on metaphysics while 

 he can attend on the same day in the after- 



