founders, and presided over its third, fourth, and fifth meetings. He said: "When the effort was first made to establish a general American Association for the Promotion of Science, it is certain that it met with considerable opposition. There were various reasons for this. From close communication with many who are now active members of the Association, I know why this fear prevailed over their hopes of the usefulness of such an institution. The opposition came not more from those who were habitually conservative, than from those who, being earnest in regard to the progress of science, are usually in favor of all progressive measures. It proceeded from no under-estimate of the strength which there was among the cultivators of science. Some of us had studied the workings of the British Association, and had been convinced of the absolute necessity for the attendance there from year to year of the men of the universities, to give tone to the proceedings, and were alarmed, perhaps, at the forays into the domains of science, which had there been witnessed in some of the less powerful sections, and even into the park of Section A itself. So far from having been trained in the same schools, we scarcely knew each other personally. How could we irregulars venture into conflict, when the files to our right and to our left were strangers to us, and when the cause might thus have suffered from the want of discipline of its volunteer support?"
The difficulties thus anticipated made their appearance. It may be not quite just to say that they were provided for, but a course was pursued which could hardly fail to bring them on. The American Association for the Advancement of Science was organized on the general plan of the British Association; its meetings were to be held in different places, as if to create a public interest in science; the membership was made easily accessible, and the form of proceedings was the same. But while the British Association has had in it a strong popular element, which has been regarded as perfectly legitimate, while it has aimed to awaken sympathy for science, and arouse an interest in it on the part of the people, by providing addresses to be delivered during its meetings to popular audiences, by including a wide range of subjects of public moment in its sectional discussions, and by giving earnest attention to the general subject of scientific education, all these things have been studiously avoided by the American Association, which has constantly maintained that its function is the creation of science and not its diffusion or popularization. Its title has misled the public from the beginning. It is not an Association for the Advancement of Science, in the full or comprehensive sense of the expression, or as interpreted by the institution which first adopted it. Had it chosen a title which accurately described its character, such as "An Association for the Promotion of Science by Original Research," misunderstandings would have been avoided, and the difficulties feared at the outset might have been escaped. There would then have been a distinctive basis of membership; nobody would have been admitted that had not done something in the way of actual research, and the work of these would not have been embarrassed and impeded by the interference of outsiders. But in the actual working of the institution these difficulties have arisen. A portion of the membership, who claim to be the investigators for which the Association was established, complained that their proceedings have been hampered and overborne by the influx of scientific nobodies; and the said nobodies have complained that the concern was managed by a self-constituted and exclusive ring, who have spent as much time in admiring each other as in their proper
