Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 64.djvu/380

376 served was that of 1851, when 87 members were present. The National Academy of Sciences was incorporated in 1863, and its fifty members included a large proportion of the scientific men of the country. There was no national society for a separate science until the American Chemical Society was established in 1874. Now the American Association is divided into ten sections, and about twenty different societies met

in affiliation with it in St. Louis, six societies devoted to the biological sciences met simultaneously at Philadelphia, the Historical and Economic Associations met at New Orleans and the Philosophical Association at Princeton. Nearly every year new national associations are established, which are rarely if ever abandoned. Thus there became this year affiliated with the American Association two new societies—The Society for Horticultural Science and the Society of College Teachers of Education.

A Society for Vertebrate Paleontology held its first meeting at Philadelphia and a Political Science Association was organized at New Orleans.

There were about 500 members of the American Association and affiliated societies at St. Louis, about 200 naturalists at Philadelphia and about 50 philosophers at Princeton. Last year the American Association and affiliated societies held two meetings—one at Pittsburg in the summer with an attendance of about 600, and one at Washington during convocation week with an attendance of about 1,400. The attendance at the winter meeting was consequently this year only half as large as last year, and the attendance of the year only about one third as large. Yet the number of scientific workers increases continually, and the membership