THE FERN BULLETIN 



93 



few to seize and run the Association in the interests of 

 a certain brand of nomenclature, and the revision of 

 the constitution is doubtless intended to make this 

 scheme more easily accomplished. One of the means 

 to this end is the proposal recently made to lengthen 

 the term of office. This is, in effect, an assumption 

 that the members are not equal to the task of selecting 

 officers annually. Besides, when the gang gets in, they 

 argue, it would spoil everything to make it possible 

 for them to be speedily turned out. The constitution 

 at present places nominations in the hands of those 

 who know the members best — the past presidents. 

 There is very little chance for a rascal to get past them/ 

 or even to get the nomination for office. It is now pro- 

 posed to fix things so that anybody, by laying enough 

 wires, can secure both nomination and election. In 

 the Fern Society only about one member in five votes, 

 and it is shrewdly urged that with a new rule in force 

 allowing independent nominations, the gang ought to 

 be able to roll up enough votes to keep themselves in 

 office. The clear thinking members of the Fern So- 

 ciety, however, ought to set themselves actively at 

 work to block this game, though after all, they may 

 well ask what the use is of bothering about the matter. 

 The American Fern Society is dead. The members 

 may not yet have discovered it, but it is dead just the 

 same. It is dead because the issue that called it forth 

 is dead. We may maintain an association and pay 

 dues, and wrangle over officers and constitution, but 

 never again will membership in it be of any use to 

 fern students any more than it has been for the past 

 three or four years. The Fern Society was a device 

 to help beginning students in a time when other help 

 was not available. Now there are books in abundance 



