A Scientific Meeting CancelledAuthor(s): F. R. M.Source: The Scientific Monthly, Vol. 55, No. 1 (Jul., 1942), pp. 94-95Published by: American Association for the Advancement of ScienceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/17712 .

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94 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

interest in connection with "La Posta," Old Mesilla and the "Billy the Kid Mu- seim. " This was followed by music and danlcing by Spanish-American senors and senoritas in the patio of La Posta. Following the closing section meeting on Wedniesday afternoon the U. S. Bureau of Plant Industry conducted a tour in which cotton, guayule and cactus were the principal topics of interest. The meeting came to a close officially with a banquet and the address "the Role of Spectrography in National Defense" by retiring President Wm. M. Craig, pro- fessor of chemistry at the Texas Techno- logical College at Lubbock.

Persons remaining on Thursday were offered a choice of trips to the Jordana

Experimental Ranges of the New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanie Arts and of the U. S. Forest Service, to the Organ Mountains to observe the native flora and faunla, to the newly dis- covered Colnkling Cave at Bishop's Cap Mountain, or to the city of El Paso, Texas, and Juarez, Mexico.

At the annual business meeting, Dr. H. P. Mera, of the Laboratory of Anthro- pology at Salnta Fe, was elected presi- dent, Professor F. H. Douglas, of the Denver Art Museum, was elected vice- presideint, and Drs. Wmn. M. Craig and E. W. Haury were elected to serve on the executive council.

FRANK E. E. GERMANN,

Secretary-Treasurer

A SCIENTIFIC MEETING CANCELLED

A SUMMER meetilig of the American Association for the Advancement of Sci- ence was scheduled to be held at the Uni- versity of Michigan, at Ann Arbor, from June 22 to June 25. Programs were being organized by the sections of the association and by various of its affiliated societies until early in March, when it was suddenly announced that the meet- ing had been cancelled.

There was no reluctance on the part of the University of Michigan to act as host to the association. It had spleindid facilities to offer. Its Wrackham build- ing would have provided admirable head- quarters; its many lecture halls, excel- lent meeting places; its dormitories, convenient living rooms. It is a great scientific center. Nearly all the leading scientists on its faculty are members of the association, anid Dr. Malcolm H. Soule, chairman of the Hygienic Labo- ratory and professor of bacteriology, is secretary of the association's Section on Medical Sciences.

The association desired to meet at Ann Arbor. Not only is the University of Michigan a great institution, but it is within easy reach of the many endowed

universities and colleges anid other state universities of the Middle West. More- over, Ann Arbor is near the center of a great maniufacturing area in which there are numerous large industrial labora- tories whose technical staffs include many members of the associatioln. Yet the proposed meeting was cancelled.

The maturing plans of scientific socie- ties and of scielntists were set aside in- directly because of what was taking place in Europe, Asia, Africa and the East Indies and on the oceans. World events made it ilecessary for the university to change radically its academic schedule, to initiate early in June a three-term yearly program instead of two semesters with a long summer vacation. The term beginning in June will coiitinue until the end of September; the next will promptly follow and continue, with a week 's vacation at the Christmas holi- days, until the enld of January; and the third will extend from February until the close of May. Similar reorganiza- tions of academic schedules and of courses are taking place all over the land.

These interruptions of the smooth flow of academic routine may be irritating,

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THE PROG-RESS OF SCIENCE 95

but they are being macle for serious pur- poses. Perhaps the usual distribution of time between periocds of work and of vacation- in universities has beeln based too largely oln what would be most enjoy- able to faculties and students rather than on what would be most useful to the institutions or to society. Perhaps, on the contrary, the drawing of scholars from the relative seclusion in which they have sought out and attempted to trans- mit to others the great achievements of the human min-d will retard the progress of civilization. Evidelitly no simple statement cail describe what is now transpiring in science and education and no one can foresee what the conse- quences will be.

It is clear, however, that educational institutions must now exarnine the whole subject of values, as never before. Prob- lems of the war are forcing them to do it. Already they are revising their objec- tives and their methods of attaining them. The problems that will follow the war will force them to reconsidera-

tions of any conclusiolns they may reach at preselnt, for what is advantageous is advantageous relative to an environment rather than in the abstract, and the en- vironment then will be entirely different from what it has been in the past or is at present. It may well be that the conclusioln will be reached that educa- tional institutions have been coasting on the great momentum they acquired in the early decades of this century when technological applications of science pro- duced great wealth and provid-ed un- paralleled leisure, without at the same time imposing the stern discipline of new ideals.

At the moment the scientists wh1o were planning to attend the meeting of the as- sociation in Ann Arbor are disappointed, but the plans for the New York mneeting beginning next Decemnber 28 are going steadily forward. It takes such minor irritations as the caneelling of a meeting to arouse men to note the changes that are going on in the world.

F. It. M.

AMERICAN INDIAN SOUND RECORDINGS IN THE NATIONAL ARCTHTVES

R. D. W. CONNOR, archivist of the United States, has announced the receipt of a gift of $30,000 by the National Archives Trust, Fund Board, established by a recent Aet of Congress. The gift is a contribution from Mr. and Mrs. Hall Clovis, to be used " for transferring the Smithsonian-.Densmore Collection of American Indian sound recordings to a permanent base from which service copies can be made. " Mr. and Mr. Clovis became interested in this undertaking through George W. Blodgett, eminent sculptor of Indian subjects and secretary of the National Gallery of the American Indian, of which Mrs. Ciovis is vice- president, a national organization de- voted to disseminating information on the American IrLdian and " presenting him, his arts, erafts alnd culture to the

white man as a living creative force." The work will be done under the diree- tion of John G. Bradley, the representa- tive of that organization for the I)istrict of Columbia, and chief of the Division of Motion Pictures and Sound Record- ings in the National Archives.

The Smithsonian-Derismore Collection, said to be the largest of its kind in ex- istence, was transferred to the National Archives by the Smithsonian Institutioll in March, 1940. It comprises more than 3,000 items of religious, social and tribal music of 76 America-n Indiani groups whose habitat extelids from Alaska to Mexico. The recordings cover a period of over 40 years, the earliest date estab- lished being 1893. They were made for the most part by ethnologists and col- laborators of the Bureau of American

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