It is very true that our American scientific research activities in physics and chemistry are so alive to-day because they have been greatly stimulated by the wonderful advances, through electron physics, in the electromagnetic theory, and in its very successful applications to technical and industrial problems. But it is also true that the scientific research activities in other branches, like biology, which are not closely connected with the electromagnetic theory and its applications, have also blossomed up with wonderful rapidity during the last twenty-five years. It will be conceded, I think, that all these activities in abstract science are to a very substantial extent due to the rapid rise of the American university and to its splendid influence upon the mentality of our industries. But in this democratic country, covering a vast area, each State has the privilege of regulating in its own way its own educational programme and policy, and each privately endowed university can pursue its own ideals in its own way without worrying very much about any other university. Lack of unity and uniformity was, therefore, always felt, and there was always a strong although often an unconscious desire in the hearts of scientific men to bring about a uniformity in the aims and aspirations of higher scientific research in our universities. The American Association for the Advancement of Science made quite a number of efforts in this direction, but the progress was slow. The great World War forced us to make another big effort in this direction, and this time the effort succeeded beyond all expectations. The following story of this big effort is, I am sure, of national importance, and should be known by every intelligent person in the United States. Just as the cultivation of science in the United States was first taken up in the technical schools, like the School of Mines of Columbia College, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and many others, and not in colleges or universities, so the organization of scientific associations took place first among the engineers, the graduates of the technical schools. The American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, for instance, were organized some time before most of the present associations in abstract science, that is in mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology were organized. Even the youngest among the leading engineering societies, that is, the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, was organized in the early eighties, whereas the American Physical Society was organized nearly twenty years later, in 1899.