Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 53.djvu/853

Rh by some, that the association is losing ground, or failing to meet the objects for which it was designed. At the same time it might, and doubtless should, attain larger growth and wider influence in its new half century, proportionately as well as actually, than it has, and some suggestions to that end will be presently referred to.

Several causes have operated to produce the impression, or the fear, that has been spoken of. We have said that, when founded, it was the only national body of its kind, and also that it is so still. But the developments of science during the last half century have altered the conditions of its existence and its work in some important respects. These marvelous advances have been strikingly presented in the September issue of the Atlantic Monthly, by Prof. W J McGee, under the title Fifty Years of American Science, in which a comprehensive survey is given of the progress of science in its various fields during this remarkable period, with the philosophic breadth that marks Professor McGee's work. He states the share and the function of the association very happily in the following words:

"Since American science was young, the course of research and conclusion has been guided by an association of science-builders, who have freely contributed their mental and moral riches to their younger and poorer fellows. This association has shaped the progress of American science, and its semicentennial anniversary is America's jubilee of Science."

As was said above, however, new phases have developed in the work of the association, some within it and some without, from this very growth of science. The increase of specialism has led not only to a division of the association into nine sections, in place of the two or three of its early years, but to the formation of several separate organizations of specialists, which have been looked upon as tending to weaken, or even disintegrate, the main body. The American Chemical Society, the American Mathematical Society, and the Geological Society of America may be cited as leading examples, while less directly in such possible rivalry stand the American Forestry Association, the American Folklore Society, and the Association of Economic Entomologists. For the most part, however, there is no cause for apprehension from these sources. Most of these societies hold their meetings at the same time and place with that of the association, or on the days immediately preceding, and thus contribute quite as much as they might detract in the matter of attendance and interest. Some of them also pursue the original plan of the association, and hold another meeting at a different season of the year; this is the case with the Geological Society, of which the