Our organization is known as the Political Science Association, and yet the subject to which it is devoted lacks the first essential of a modern science—a nomenclature incomprehensible to educated men. Other sciences employ terms of art which are exact because barbarous, that is remote from common usage, and therefore devoid of the connotations which give to language its richness and at the same time an absence of precision. But the want of an exact terminology is not the only defect of our subject. It suffers also from imperfect development of the means of self-expansion. The natural sciences grow by segmentation, each division, like the severed fragments of an earthworm, having a vitality of its own. Thus in zoölogy and botany we hear of cytology, histology, morphology and physiology, expressions which correspond, perhaps, with aspects of our own ancient, yet infantile, branch of learning.

The first of the divisions already mentioned, cytology, deals with the cell as the unit of structure, and bears thus an analogy to the study of man as an individual, a social being by nature, no doubt, but considered from this point of view as a separate personality; to some extent at least as an end in himself. It corresponds rather to psychology than politics. Histology, if I am correctly informed, is concerned with the tissues made by the organic connection of many cells, the substances of which the body is formed, and by means of which its manifold operations are conducted. We may fancy that it has its counterpart in sociology, that science of which the late Gabriel Tarde remarked that it was named before its birth, although the time had come when it ought to be born.

The year 1909 was not characterized by great dramatic occurrences like the Boxer outbreak of 1900 or the war of 1904. Although its history abounded in most interesting situations, it was a period rather of peaceful development and readjustment than of marked advance along any particular lines. The general, desire to maintain peaceful relations and to settle such differences as might still be outstanding between nations was evidenced by the large number of ceremonial visits from country to country—visits of monarchs and prime ministers, of commercial and literary deputations, and of distinguished private individuals. All the important European nations took part in this exchange of courtesies which gave occasion in each case to eloquent declarations of mutual friendship. In general, no special political importance could be attributed to such visits beyond the common desire of keeping relations in their normal, friendly condition. In certain cases, indeed, the attempt was made to attribute a special importance; as in the case of the visit of the Russian czar to Italy, which was interpreted in some quarters as an attempt to break up the Triple Alliance. Other meetings again were characterized by very unusual cordiality, such as that of the German emperor, and later of the German prime minister, with the emperor of Austria.

The evolution of parliamentary government in Germany proceeds apace. The virtual admission of Chancellor Bülow, on the occasion of the publication of the Kaiser's interview with the retired English diplomat in October, 1908, that the government's defeat by the reichstag would necessarily involve his resignation will be at once recalled. This promise has been now actually fulfilled, and that suave and genial statesman's retirement, upon the defeat of his budget, advances Germany one step farther toward a modern system of ministerial responsibility to the people's representatives. The appointment of a successor who promises a continuation of Bülow's policy indicates that there are other important steps yet to be taken, but does not obscure the significance of this change of ministers. Within no distant period it is altogether likely we shall see a full-fledged system of political ministerial responsibility to the legislature, with its corollary of effective votes of lack of confidence,—a system in which the reichstag will control the appointment of the incoming ministers as well as force the resignation of those with whom it is no longer in accord. It may therefore not be without a timely interest to review the German doctrine of the budget as a means of control over the executive.