Abstract
THE American Association held its fiftieth annual meeting at Denver, Colorado, during the week beginning August 24, under the presidency of Prof. Charles S. Minot, of Harvard University. This is the first time that the Association has met west of the banks of the Mississippi River, and the meeting consequently marks a somewhat important epoch in the development of science in America. The central and western States have occupied somewhat the same position towards the Atlantic seaboard as this part of the country held in relation to Europe until about twenty-five years ago. Until the development of the eastern universities, the scientific men of the United States were largely trained abroad and looked chiefly to Great Britain and the Continent for their scientific models. Up to the present time the central and western States—engaged in subduing Nature on a scale hitherto unattempted—have depended on the Atlantic States for their education, their science and their literature. The development of the universities in the central and western States during the past ten years has, however, been remarkable. Of the forty universities in the world having more than 2000 students, seven—Michigan, Chicago, North-Western, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois and California—are situated in this region; and these institutions are not mere schools, but universities and centres for the ad- vancement of science, rivalling Leipzig or Cambridge in their standards and in their productiveness. The time has obviously come when men of science in the west can meet on equal terms their colleagues in the east, and this event was signalised by the meeting of the Association at Denver, midway between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. The meeting, though not so largely attended as is usual further to the east—the members from either the Atlantic or Pacific coasts had 2000 miles to travel—was successful both on its social and scientific sides. Hospitality is the virtue of a new country, and the people of Denver were prepared to entertain the Association by social functions and excursions in a way that is not usual in the United States.
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The Denver Meeting of the American Association . Nature 64, 498–502 (1901). https://doi.org/10.1038/064498a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/064498a0