Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 66.djvu/395

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there is at the same time a growing class of problems which may be termed synthetic, to which special students must devote themselves without reference to the traditional boundaries of the separate sciences. These include the problems of evolution and many of the most pressing problems of solar research, geophysics, and the like, and still more of such applied sciences as medicine, agriculture and engineering. This suggests one of the strongest reasons, appealing to the interests of pure research itself, for a common meeting-ground of investigators in artificially separated though not unrelated fields, which shall serve as a clearing house for different classes of students at work on the same problems.

Professor William James, the eminent psychologist, who made a notable presidential address before the psychological association this year, was elected president of the American Society of Naturalists for the next meeting. There will inevitably be some separation of the societies next year, but it is hoped that all will be reunited for an especially good general meeting at Boston the year following.