George Gissing - "The Unclassed"

John Greenleaf Whittier - "Poems of Nature, Poems Subjective and Reminiscent"

Unknown - "The World English Bible (WEB): Philippians"

Edited by Henry Chadwick - "Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1895"

The Popular Science Monthly Volume LXXXVI July to September, 1915

U >> Unkown >> The Popular Science Monthly Volume LXXXVI July to September, 1915




Of more special papers, some of which, however, were of general
and even popular interest, there were on the program 36,
distributed somewhat unequally among the sections into which
the academy is divided as follows: Mathematics, 0; Astronomy,
3; Physics and Engineering, 7; Chemistry, 1; Geology and
Paleontology, 6; Botany, 7; Zoology and Animal Morphology, 8;
Physiology and Pathology, 4; Anthropology and Psychology, 0. A
program covering all the sciences belongs in a sense to the
eighteenth rather than to the twentieth century; still there is
human as well as scientific interest in listening to those who
are leaders in the conduct of scientific work.

The academy was fortunate in meeting in the American Museum of
Natural History, where in addition to the scientific sessions
luncheon and an evening reception were provided. The museum has
assumed leadership both in exhibits for the public and in the
scientific research which it is accomplishing. The planning of
museum exhibits is itself a kind of research and in this
direction the American Museum, together with the National
Museum in Washington and the Field Museum in Chicago, now
surpasses any of the museums of the old world and in the course
of the next ten years will have no rivals there. It is
interesting that the city and an incorporated board of trustees
are able to cooperate in the support of the museum, as is also
the case with the Zoological Park and the Botanical Gardens
which the members of the academy visited in the course of the
meeting.



FREDERIC WARD PUTNAM

POWELL in Washington, Brinton in Philadelphia and Putnam in
Cambridge may be regarded as the founders of modern
anthropology in America. In the death of Putnam, at the age of
seventy-six years, we have lost the last of these leaders.

Putnam is often spoken of as the father of anthropological
museums because he, more than any other one person, contributed
to their development. He seems to have been a museum man by
birth, for at an early age we find him listed as curator of
ornithology in the Essex Institute of Salem, Mass. The Peabody
Museum of Archeology at Cambridge is largely his work, he
having entered the institution in 1875 and continued as its
head until his death. This institution is in many respects one
of the most typical anthropological museums in America. During
his college career Professor Putnam came under the influence of
Professor Louis Agassiz and was for several years an assistant
in the laboratory of that distinguished scientist. It seems
likely that this was the source of Professor Putnam's faith and
enthusiasm for the accumulation and preservation of concrete
data. As his interest in anthropology grew, he seems to have
sought to bring together in the Peabody Museum a collection of
scientific material that should have the same relation to the
new and developing science of anthropology as the collections
of Professor Agassiz's laboratory had to the science of
biology. Professor Putnam's great skill in developing the
Peabody Museum brought him into public notice and led to his
appointment as director of the anthropological section of the
World Columbian Exposition in Chicago The exhibit he prepared
made an unusual impression and it is said that largely to his
personal influence is due the interest of the late Marshall
Field in developing and providing for the museum which now
bears his name. After this achievement Professor Putnam was
invited by the American Museum of Natural History to organize
the department of anthropology which he proceeded to do upon
broad lines, giving it a status and impetus which is still
manifest. Later on he was invited to the University of
California to organize a department and a museum similar to the
one at Harvard and this also is now one of our leading
institutions. Thus it is clear that the history of American
anthropological museums is to a large extent the life history
of Professor Putnam.

The one new and important idea which Professor Putnam brought
into his museum work was that they should be in reality
institutions of research. Until that time they were chiefly
collections of curios brought together by purchase of
miscellaneous collections without regard to the scientific
problems involved. Professor Putnam's idea was that the museum
should go into the field and by systematic research and
investigation develop a definite problem, bringing to the
museum such illustrative and concrete data as should come to
hand in the prosecution of research. Professor Putnam also
played a large part in securing the recognition of anthropology
by universities and by his position at Harvard pointed the way
to mutual cooperation between museums and universities. He
possessed an unusual personality which enabled him to approach
and interest men of affairs so as to secure their financial
support for anthropological research and as a teacher he was
intensely interested in young men, offering them every possible
opportunity for advancement and never really losing personal
interest in them as long as he lived.



SCIENTIFIC ITEMS

WE record with regret the deaths of Brigadier-general George M.
Sternberg, retired, surgeon-general of the army, from 1893 to
1902, distinguished for his investigations of yellow fever and
other diseases; of Edward Lee Greene, associate in botany at
the Smithsonian Institution; of Wirt Tassin, formerly chief
chemist and assistant curator of the division of mineralogy, U.
S. National Museum; of Augustus Jay Du Bois, for thirty years
professor of civil engineering in the Sheffield Scientific
School, Yale University; of Sir Andrew Noble, F.R.S.,
distinguished for his scientific work on artillery and
explosives; of Edward A. Minchin, F.R.S., professor of
protozoology in the University of London, and of R. Assheton,
F.R.S., university lecturer in animal embryology at the
University of Cambridge.



THE Nobel prize for chemistry for 1914 has been awarded to
Professor Theodore William Richards, of Harvard University, for
his work on atomic weights. The prize for physics has been
awarded to Professor Max von Laue of Frankfort-on-Main, for his
work on the diffraction of rays in crystals.



PROFESSOR ADOLF VON BAEYER celebrated his eightieth birthday on
October 31. With the beginning of the present semester he
retired from the chair of chemistry at Munich in which he
succeeded von Liebig in 1875.--The Romanes lecture before the
University of Oxford will be delivered this year by Professor
E. B. Poulton, Hope professor of zoology in the university, on
December 7. The subject will be "Science and the Great War."



AT the recent meeting in Manchester, as we learn from Nature,
the general committee of the British Association unanimously
adopted the following resolution, which has been forwarded to
the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the
Presidents of the Board of Education and of Agriculture and
Fisheries: "That the British Association for the Advancement of
Science, believing that the higher education of the nation is
of supreme importance in the present crisis of our history,
trusts that his Majesty's government will, by continuing its
financial support, maintain the efficiency of teaching and
research in the universities and university colleges of the
United Kingdom."



COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY received by the will of Amos F. Eno the
residuary estate which may amount to several million dollars.
In addition, the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen
receives $1,800,000, and bequests of $250,000 each are made to
New York University, The American Museum of Natural History,
the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the New York Association for
improving the Condition of the Poor--Mr. James J. Hill has
presented $125,000 to Harvard University to be added to the
principal of the professorship in the Harvard graduate school
of business administration, which bears his name. The James J.
Hill professorship of transportation was founded by a gift of
$125,000, announced last commencement day, the donors including
John Pierpont Morgan, Thomas W. Lamont, Robert Bacon and Howard
Elliott.--The sum of about $400,000 has been subscribed in the
University of Michigan alumni campaign for $1,000,000 with
which to build and endow a home for the Michigan Union, as a
memorial to Dr. James B. Angell, president emeritus.

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