Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 49.djvu/869

Rh betimes is that the mind early accustomed to view the universe as an infinite field of knowledge, and science simply as a method tested and proved by experience for acquiring knowledge, is placed once for all in the right relation and attitude to all questions demanding the exercise of thought. Many men of eminence in letters have expressed regret that they did not enjoy this advantage in early life; and on every hand we see proofs that the lack which they have deplored is precisely the lack under which others are laboring, without, however, a saving consciousness of their deficiency. We want more science, not less, in education, but the science must itself be scientific.

meeting of the American Association in Buffalo—its fourth meeting in that city—was eminently satisfactory from a scientific point of view, and was marked by many features of interest. About four hundred members were present. Among them were two of the six founders of the association still living—Dr. James Hall, and Prof. Charles West, of Brooklyn—whose presence was fittingly mentioned by President Morley in opening the meeting. Later in the sessions a kind of jubilee meeting was held in the Geological Section in commemoration of the sixtieth anniversary of Prof. Hall's work in connection with the New York Geological Survey, when addresses were made by Prof. Joseph Le Conte, W J McGee, and others, in which special features of the survey were presented. The address of welcome by the mayor of the city was supplemented by a greeting from Dr. Roswell Park, of the Buffalo Academy of Natural Sciences, on behalf of the scientific life of the place. Buffalo—a commercial city—has no great scientific institutions, but several of modest pretensions, including its university of five professional schools, which has just celebrated its semi-centennial; a second medical school; several libraries; the academy, which boasts of its special collection relating to the American bison; and a number of smaller affiliated clubs, each devoted to some particular form of the study of Nature.

President E. D. Cope, replying to these addresses, spoke of the insignificance of our knowledge as compared with what we do not know, of the value of original research, the nature of scientific investigation, and the objects of the association. The address of retiring President Morley was on the subject of A Completed Chapter in the History of the Atomic Theory, The addresses of the sectional vice-presidents were mostly technical discussions of special topics in their several fields, but some, which we shall mention in another place, offered points of considerable general interest. A similar remark may be applied to the papers in the sections, which offered great variety in character. The proceedings of the Economic Section were marked by the discussion of monetary questions in papers by Mr. William H. Hale and Edward Atkinson; Mr. Stillman Kneeland's paper on Citizenship, its Privileges and Duties; and papers bearing on the "woman question." Studies of Indian life were presented in the Anthropological Section, and an air of realism was imparted to the matter by the opening of an Indian burial chest, found in Michigan, and the exhibition of other specimens. The Geological Section paid much attention to caves. The results of cave exploration in the United States and their bearing on the antiquity of man