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MS.S. Intended for piblication and books, etc.. intended fer review should be senlt to Professor J. McKeen Cattell, Garrisonon-Hludson, N. Y, THE CHARACTERIZATION AND CLASSIFICATION OF BACTERIAL TYPES' THE vast majority of students of microbial life are preoccupied with immediately practical problems, and most of them have been trained for their work from the standpoint of some practical art, medicine, veterinary science, sanitary engineering or agriculture, rather than from the more general and fundamental standpoint of the biologist. The Society of American Bacteriologists was founded as a protest against such necessary but dangerous specialization, to bring together workers in all fields for a consideration of their problems in the light of the underlying, unifying principles of bacteriology as a member of the group of the biologic sciences. It is this ideal which distinguishes our society from any other organization in America which deals with microbic life and its effects. It is of course fruitless to attempt to draw any sharp distinction between pure and applied science, and it would be a great pity if, as we gather year by year, we should fail to discuss together many of the more special problems of techn'ique with which we are concerned. In particular it is well that we should exercise the widest hospitality toward those branches of our science, such as dairy bacteriology and soil bacteriology which have no technical societies at their disposal, such as are available for the specialists in medical and sanitary lines. We should be untrue to our highest mission however, if we failed at the same time to emphasize those phases of our work in which this society of all others