of workers. Ample accommodations were provided in the new State-House, where all the meetings could be held under a single roof. The citizens of Indianapolis, who as a community are busy in turning the achieved results of science to profit, were enthusiastic in welcome and kindnesses.
The more noteworthy papers, including the official addresses, well befitted the name of the body, and were true to its declared purposes of promoting intercourse between students and encouraging more active and more systematic research; and a considerable proportion of them were at the same time happily adapted to the average intelligence of a public audience and in the direction of popular questionings.
Retiring President Mendenhall treated in his address of the relations that exist and should exist between scientific students and the public. While he sought to determine how far men of science are responsible for any lack of cordiality that may exist, he demonstrated to business men, by means of a very happy illustration, that they are enjoying direct benefits from the results of abstract research to a far greater extent than they realize or imagine. His remarks, on both sides of this subject, deserve particular attention. Vice-President Branner, considering the relations of State and National Geological Surveys, endeavored to sketch a plan of combined action, under which the party of either side could do the work proper for it without encroaching upon the field of the other, and room be left for individual research. Vice-President Dodge, in the Economic and Statistical Section, set forth in a pleasant light the advantages enjoyed by the producing classes in the United States in relation to the standard of living. In relating the present condition of knowledge respecting the variable stars, Prof. Chandler had a subject that involves research of the highest order, of which at the same time every one desires to be informed. In a large number of the sectional papers, too, the sober dignity of the scientific method was combined with adaptation to the tastes of hearers of a practical turn.
Societies outside of the sections and complementary to them continue to grow around the Association. The meetings of the Society for the Promotion of Agriculture were lively and practical; those of the Geological Society were more technical in tone. The Entomological Club insisted on the extension and enlargement of the study of insects. An Ornithological Society was formed, and went at once to talking about birds. The Botanical Club held its eighth annual meeting. Prof. Britton, under instructions from the Toronto meeting, gave an account of the present state of systematic botany in North America. A National Chemical Society was projected.
The fact that this was the fiftieth meeting of the Association does not seem to have received special attention further than a mention in Prof. Mendenhall's address. The fact that the Association has maintained its vigor and has prospered during half a century is evidence that it has had a place of usefulness and has filled it. The question now arises whether, if it would meet the demands of the future as successfully as it has met those of the past, it will not have to adapt itself anew to the changed conditions of science and the country and to the present popular demand for scientific knowledge, which are very different now from what they were when it began.
The doors of the Association were thrown open to members of foreign societies, who will be admitted hereafter, with full privileges, without fees; and provision was made for inviting to the next meeting representations of the scientific societies of Mexico and Central and South America. The following officers were chosen for the ensuing year:
