12 
MALLERY. 
there is mutual correction, ascertainment of truth, and pro¬ 
mulgation of law. 
The scientific organization most widely known in the 
United States is the American Association for the Advance¬ 
ment of Science, its prototype being the British Association 
of corresponding title. It is questionable whether that title 
is descriptive. The migratory meetings of the Society are 
certainly of educational value, diffusing information about 
science and exciting interest in it, but perhaps its constitu¬ 
tion, well adapted to the real aims, cannot directly advance 
science considered as a generality. Its constitution origin¬ 
ally provided for sections, which have been multiplied from 
time to time and have gained increased influence upon the 
central governing body. But there is no provision for the 
presentation of scientific papers to and their discussion by 
the general session. The President’s annual address does 
not fulfill that object. He is probably a specialist, and gen¬ 
erally adopts the convenient expedient of working off for the 
occasion some of his unpublished notes. It is a matter of 
taste and judgment whether this mode, which in a series of 
years gives a variety of good specialistic addresses, is more 
commendable than to present a discourse that aims to be 
philosophic, leaving specialties to the sections and to the sev¬ 
eral Vice-Presidents having them in charge. It might well 
be the ambition of the President to deliver an address which 
could not bear the blazon of any specialty which he might 
possess or which might possess him. But, apart from taste, 
a good reason for his avoiding such specialty is that his paper 
is not open to discussion and, so far as concerns the Asso¬ 
ciation, might as well have first appeared in the periodicals 
devoted to science. The other addresses delivered in gen¬ 
eral meeting are almost always show-pieces professedly pop¬ 
ular and given to please the local subscribers to the expenses. 
As regards interrelation, the meetings of the sections might 
as well be a thousand miles apart as in the same building. 
The Congress of American Physicians and Surgeons re¬ 
cently instituted recognized the disadvantage of leaving 
