Even that would be acceptable if at least the best scholars would come out with their latest investigations, or, still more delightful, if they would enter into an important discussion. But experience has too often shown that the conditions are most favorable for the opposite outcome. The leading scholars stay away partly to give beginners the chance to be heard, partly not to be grouped with those who habitually have the floor at such gatherings. These are either the men whose day has gone by or those whose day has not yet come; and both groups tyrannize alike an unwilling audience. Yet it may be said that in scientific meetings of specialists the reading of papers is non-essential and no harm is done even if they do not contribute anything to the status of scholarship; their great value lies in the personal contact of fellow workers and in the discussions and informal exchange of opinions. All that is true, and completely justifies the yearly meetings of scholarly associations. But these advantages are much diminished whenever such gatherings take on an international character, and thus introduce the confusion of tongues. And hardly any one can doubt that the turmoil of a world's fair is about the worst possible background for such exchange of thought, which demands repose and quietude. Yet even with the certainty of all these disadvantages the city of Paris, with its large body of scholars, with its venerable scholarly traditions, and with its incomparable attractions, could overcome every resistance, and its convenient location made it natural that in vacation time, in an exposition summer, the scholars should gather there, not on account of, but in spite of, the hundred congresses. With this the city of St. Louis could make no claim to rivalry. Its recent growth, its minimum of scholarly tradition, its great distance from the old centres of knowledge even in the New World, the apathy of the East and the climatic fears of Europe, all together made it clear that a mere repetition of unrelated congresses would be not only useless, but a disastrous failure. These very fears, however, themselves suggested the remedy.