AMERICANS VISIT NEW ZEALAND

Last summer with characteristic enterprise the Government of New Zealand took advantage of the meeting of the British Association for the advancement of Science in Australia to invite a number of the members of the Association to New Zealand to hold supplementary meetings. In addition to the British scientists invited from Australia, the New Zealand Government invited fifteen Americans and Canadians to participate in these supplementary meetings. The plan was to hold a two-days' session in Christ Church early in September. Among the Americans invited were Professor Hanus of the Department of Education and Professor Wheeler of the Bussey Institution. These gentlemen accepted the invitation and spent the summer in the trip to New Zealand. Unfortunately, the war interfered with the carrying out of the program which had been planned by the New Zealand committee. When the American visitors sailed from America on July 22, no intimation of the coming war had reached them. They arrived in New Zealand on August 13, in the early stages of the war. In spite of the depressing influence of the war, the plan for holding scientific meetings in Wellington and Christ Church was not wholly abandoned, but it was thought best to curtail or abandon altogether most of the social functions which had been included in the program.

The committee in charge of the New Zealand meetings finally decided that they would like to have the American visitors lecture, each of them giving at least one lecture, and that when these lectures had been given, the visitors should regard their responsibilities as discharged. Among the lecturers in Wellington were Professor Wheeler and Professor Hanus--Professor Wheeler lecturing on "Ants and Other Social Insects," and Professor Hanus on "The Search for Standards in Education." The courtesy and generous hospitality of the committee in charge were untiring.