16 IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE Voi,. XXVII, 1920 
proposition will be submitted for your formal ratification at the closing 
business session. 
There are sundry matters of policy to which the attention of the 
Academy is directed. It has been the custom of the Academy to pay 
for the extra cost of the binding in buckram of three hundred copies of 
the proceedings for distribution to its own members. This year the 
State Document Editor, Mr. Ora Williams, has kindly assumed that 
item and thus has relieved our treasury of a heavy burden. Mr. Williams 
has also assumed the cost of cutting up and stitching the separates 
which the Academy furnishes to the authors of papers and will doubtless 
continue the policy thus inaugurated. For several years past the authors 
of papers in the Proceedinp have been supplied with separates by 
cutting up one hundred of tne one thousand copies of the Proceedings 
allowed us by law. This reduced the cost of separates to the Academy 
very much but it also reduced the number of bound copies available. 
It is believed that very few authors really care for more than fifty 
separates of their papers and that if the other fifty copies are thus 
released to be bound they will serve a better purpose. The few members 
who need more than fifty separates usually have an additional number 
printed and so will not be put to any greater inconvenience. 
It has seemed to the secretary that it would be well for the Academy 
to adopt as a fixed policy some plan whereby papers should be submitted 
to an editorial committee for approval before being published. The 
secretary has no means of adjudging the correctness or value of any 
paper and it might be that the plan suggested would still further enhance 
the quality of our publications. Such a plan is followed by some of the 
national societies and might be adopted advantageously by our Academy. 
In this connection may I not urge authors to give common names to the 
objects described in addition to the scientific names. I know of nothing 
more dreary or stultifying to interest than to struggle through page upon 
page of technical names without being able to get the least comprehension 
of the content of the paper. And yet that represents the situation with 
regard to some papers presented for publication. I suspect that the 
botanists are the greatest offenders in this matter. Our Proceedings 
go into most of the libraries of the state and can do much to make or 
mar our reputation. If they consist largely of unintelligible Eatin words 
the common estimate of scientific people will be accentuated rather than 
corrected. Another suggestion in this connection : It seems to the 
secretary that the Academy would do well to encourage research and 
publication by noncollegians — that is persons interested in science who 
are not now connected with our educational system. From time to time 
such papers have appeared and the intent of this suggestion is to incite 
members of this class to increased activity. 
The affiliation of the Academy with the American Association will tend 
to greatly increase the duties of the Treasurer, which are already onerous. 
It would seem only fair that some compensation should be given him 
to repay him for this added labor. We have never granted the treasurer 
any honorarium and it appears that now is an opportune occasion to 
establish the custom. Incidentally I may add that the Treasurer informs 
me that very few service men accepted the remission of their dues which 
