Organised or Sectional Work in Astronomy

Abstract

THE remark was recently made by Prof. S. C. Chandler that, notwithstanding there had been no recent systematic arrangement of work in connection with variable stars, the result was most gratifying; for the observations were fairly complete, few interesting objects having been neglected. He says that “this satisfactory result could hardly have been reached so effectively by a formal organisation of work directed from headquarters, prescribing and circumscribing the operations of each participant, and destroying by its benumbing influence the enthusiasm which springs from the individual initiative of the observers themselves.”