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The Convocation Week Meeting in New YorkSource: The Scientific Monthly, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Feb., 1929), pp. 183-185Published by: American Association for the Advancement of ScienceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/14585 .
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THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE THE CONVOCATION WEEK MEETING IN NEW YORK
THE mneetings of the American Asso- ciation for the Advancement of Science and of sixty-four associated scientific societies held during the week following Christmas fulfilled all the predictions made by the president, Dr. Henry Fair- field Osborn, in the article printed in the last number of this magazine. It indeecd surpassed them, for by common consent there has not hitherto been held in this country and perhaps not elsewhere a meeting at which so many contributions were presented by so many scientific men, or at which the arrangements for their scientific programs and their en- tertainment were so complete.
The approximate figures are 2,200 papers and addresses presented by 1,900 different individuals at 250 sessions. The registration was about 4,000; the total attendance perhaps 50 per cent. larger. The printed program extended to 350 pages; an examination of the titles indicates how completely the whole field of modern science was covered by the research papers and by the addresses and sessions of general interest.
A special feature of the meeting was the series of lectures arranged by Presi- dent Osborn at the American Museum of Natural History, followed every eve- ning by a reception with the opening of the whole museum on the first evening and of the halls appropriate to the lec- tures on subsequent evenings. The lectures in the evening and in the late afternoon were by the most distin- guished American men of science-the retiring president of the association, Professor A. A. Noyes, on chemistry; Professor Charles P. Berkey, on Asiatic exploration; Professor Arthur H. Comp- ton, on physics; Professor William Mor- ton Wheeler, on biology; Professor Har- low Shapley, on astronomy; Professor
Franz Boas, on anthropology; Professor Bailey Willis, on geology, and others. Two of these addresses are printed in the present issne of the MONTHLY, which hopes to have the privilege of printing others. There were also lectures by Pro- fessor G. HI. Ilardy, of Oxford, and by Professor H. H. Turner, of the same university, the latter having been sent as a special representative from the British Association.
Columbia University and Teachers College entertained a large proportion of the section meetings and the special societies, each of which had its owvn pro- gram, ineluding many sessionis planned to be of general interest to all scientific men and indeed to the wider public which is coming to realize the dominant place of science in modern civilization. The only difficulty was the conflicts. If all the papers had been given in suc- cession at the rate of seven a day the meeting would have lasted for a year. At Columbia University was the scien- tific exhibit which provided a continu- oiis conversazione through the week.
In addition to Columbia University and the American Museum of Natural History some forty other scientific and educational institutions of the city acted as hosts, placing their facilities at the disposal of visiting scientific men for meetings or for visits. Especially to be mentioned are the reception at the Metropolitan Museum of Art anid the Philharmonic Symphony Concert in Carnegie Hall. At the latter President Osborn, in thanking the conductor, Mr. Mengelberg, said that perhaps never be- fore had so many scientific men been assembled in one audience.
It was the fifth meeting of the Ameri- can Association for the Advancement of Science in New York and the third of
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184 THIIE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY
DR. ROBERT A. MIILLIKAN
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THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 185
the convocation week meetings held after Christmas in cooperation with the asso- ciated scientific societies. Dnring the more than fifty years of its history in the couXrse of the last century the asso- ciation met only onee in New York, when in 1887 Dr. S. P. Langley, secre- tary of the Smithsonian Institution, was president. In 1900 the meeting, still in sunmmer, w-as under the presidency of R. S. Woodward, then professor in Columbia University and later president of the Carnegie Institution. There were then only 1,200 members of the association; the increase to the present 17,500 was in large measure due to the action taken at that meeting in estab- lishing Science as the official journal of the association. The convocation week meeting of 1906 was held in December under the presidency of Dr. William II. Welch, long dean of the medical school of the Johns Hopkins University, leader in the development of scientific medi- eine. Ten years later Dr. Charles R. Van Hise, the distinguished geologist, president of the University of Wiscon- sin, presided. At about that time it was arranged that meetings should be held once in twelve years in New York and in the intervening four-year periods in Washington or in Chicago. These are
the larger convocation week meetings in which the executive officers are elected for the ensuing four-year period.
At the recent meeting Professor Bur- ton E. Livingston, professor of physio- logical botany at the Johns Hopkins University, whose conduct of the asso- ciation during the past eight years has met the unanimous approval of Ameri- can men of science, was reelected perma- nent secretary. Dr. Frank R. Lillie, professor of embryology at the Uni- versity of Chicago, was elected general secretary, and secretaries were elected for the fifteen sections. Distinguished scientific men to serve for one year were elected as chairmen of the sections and vice-presidents of the association.
Full accounts of the meeting, pre- pared by the permanent secretary of the association with the cooperation of the secretaries of the sections and of the associated societies, will be published in the issues of Science for January 25 and February 1. Copies may be ob- tained without charge by members of the association who do not receive the journal regularly, and by others who remit the cost, by addressing the office of: the permanent secretary of the asso- ciation in the Smithsonian Institution Building, Washington.
THE PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION THE distinguished line of succession
in the presidency of the American As- sociation was continued by the election of Dr. Robert A. Millikan to follow Dr. Henry Fairfield Osborn. It was an opeln secret among scientific men that when it came the turn to elect a physicist it would be Dr. Millikan. The nomi- nating mail ballot from all members of the association was nearly unanimous except in the case of those who did not understand that there is a policy of alternation between the physical and natural sciences or who cast a compli- mentary ballot for a biologist.
Dr. Millikan is one of the few Ameri- can mnen of science who has continned to carry forward research of the highest order while at the same time constantly engaged in public service for science. For example, he came from the Pacific coast to attend the meeting of the National Academy at the end of No- vember and again in December to attend the meeting of the American Associa- tion. He is foreign secretary of the National Academy, vice-chairman of the National Research Couneil and the American member of the committee on intelleetual cooperation of the League of
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