The British Association Following hard on the commemorations of Michael
Faraday the British Association's meetings are being held in London under the admirably chosen President, Genera Jan Smuts, with whose address we deal in a leading article. We regret that our own " time-space " does not permit us even to name all the presidential addresses in which one or other aspect of this scientific centenary is presented to the appropriate section by the acknow- ledged masters of their subject. Special interest for the general reader perhaps attaches to the discourses of Dr. Poulton on " A Hundred Years of Evolution," of Sir Alfred Ewing on " Power," of Sir Raiford Mackinder on " The Human Habitat," and of Dr. Edwin Cannan on " The Changed Outlook in Regard to Popula- tion." Incomparably the most readable, however, is that of Sir Charles Grant Robertson on " Educational Development," which sparkles with good things and is as wise as it is witty. We cannot resist quoting his sly hit at a certain type of psychological jargon in his definition of kleptomania as " a functional parapraxis due to imperfect motivation or an intermittent dis- association affecting a polylocationary consciousness."
Ah, what a dusty answer gets the soul When hot for certainties in this our life !
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