88 
REPORT OF THE AUTUMN MEETING 
mark of confidence most keenly, and notwithstanding some twinges of a New England con- 
science about receiving credit for work done by some one else, I have been very grateful 
to the Council for its complimentary action. 
More recently, it may have come to your ears that I have undertaken a very much greater 
war responsibility than any with which I have heretofore had to do. It is in connection 
with the Corning Glass Works at Corning, N. Y., and I have accordingly decided to move 
my family there. 
It is a very necessary though unwritten law that the Home Secretary should be a resi- 
dent of Washington, which after October 1 I shall no longer be. I therefore respectfully 
offer a final request to be relieved of the duties of Home Secretary from October 1, 1918. 
With kindest regards, believe me, 
Very sincerely yours, 
Arthur L. Day, Home Secretary. 
The recommendation of the Council that the resignation of Mr. A. L. Day 
as Home Secretary be accepted with an expression of appreciation of his 
valuable services in that ofhce and that the election of a Home Secretary as 
provided for under the Constitution be held at the next stated meeting of 
the Academy was approved. 
The President presented the following communication from the President 
of the United States relative to the National Research Council: 
Executive Order Issued by the President of the United States, May 11, 1918 
The National Research Council was organized in 1916 at the request of the President 
of the National Academy of Sciences, under its Congressional charter, as a measure of na- 
tional preparedness. The work accomplished by the Council in organizing research and in 
securing cooperation of military and civilian agencies in the solution of military problems 
demonstrates its capacity for larger service. The National Academy of Sciences is there- 
fore requested to perpetuate the National Research Council, the duties of which shall be as 
follows: 
1. In general, to stimulate research in the mathematical, physical and biological sci- 
ences, and in the application of these sciences to engineering, agriculture, medicine and 
other useful arts, with the object of increasing knowledge, of strengthening the national 
defense, and of contributing in other ways to the public welfare. 
2. To survey the larger possibilities of science, to formulate comprehensive projects of 
research, and to develop effective means of utilizing the scientific and technical resources 
of the country for dealing with these objects. 
3. To promote cooperation in research, at home and abroad, in order to secure concen- 
tration of effort, minimize duplication, and stimulate progress; but in all cooperative under- 
takings to give encouragement to individual initiative, as fundamentally important to the 
advancement of science. 
4. To serve as a means of bringing American and foreign investigators into active co- 
operation with the scientific and technical services of the War and Navy Departments and 
with those of the civil branches of the government. 
5. To direct the attention of scientific and technical investigators to the present im- 
portance of military and industrial problems in connection with the war, and to aid in the 
solution of these problems by organizing specific researches. 
6. To gather and collate scientific and technical information at home and abroad, in 
cooperation with Governmental and other agencies and to render such information available 
to duly accredited persons. 
Effective prosecution of the Council's work requires the cordial collaboration of the 
scientific and technical branches of the Government, both miHtary and civil. To this end 
