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Contents: The role of the life insurance company in health conservation programs, by L. K. Frankel; Co-operation between life insurance and trust companies, by E. A. Woods; Insurance of substandard lives, by Robert Henderson; Investment tendencies of life insurance companies, F. H. Ecker; Group life insurance, by W. J. Graham; Life insurance as an aid to education and philanthropy, by J. A. Stevenson; The modern life underwriter, by J. M. Holcombe, jr; Non-medical life insurance, by H. F. Larkin; Salary savings insurance, by R. L. Place; Inspection reports on persons as a factor in life insurance, by J. A. Fitzgerald; Beneficiary provisions under modern life insurance policies, by L. E. Thompson; Fraternal life insurance, by C. K. Knight.

Winkler, in his useful account of botanical investigations in Texas, states (p. 5) that Jean Louis Berlandier, a French botanist in the employ of the Mexican Government, was the first to explore Texas botanically, while connected (1828) with the Comision de Limites under General Mier y Teran. In the present writer's own published studies, this statement was repeated, since the collections of Dr. Edwin James while a member of Long's Rocky Mountain Expedition (1819-20) were made in territory not a part of the historic province of Texas, but of Chihuahua, as maps of the period will show. In the modern sense, however, it would appear a punctilio to exclude Dr. James from consideration on such grounds; and the present writer finds himself in agreement with Studhalter's contention that Berlandier is not to be considered the first botanist who worked in Texas.

The basic principle on which life insurance is founded is that of mutual co-operation. Many persons co-operate to assume and to share risks which the individual could not afford to bear alone. This cooperation takes the form of contributions to a common fund, from which claims are paid as they occur. In the modern form of life insurance the contributions are "level" and dependent chiefly on the age of the contributor at entry to the fund. Since the life insurance risk increases with increasing age it will be obvious that level contributions sufficient to meet all risks will more than suffice to meet the lighter risks of the early years and will be insufficient to meet the heavier risks of the later years. Accordingly, the early excess contributions must be accumulated in the fund to make good the later deficiencies. It is these excess contributions accumulated to meet the future risks that are invested and form the assets of the life companies. These assets are not the property of the companies in the commonly accepted sense of the word, but instead represent the accumulated savings of the individual policy-holders, to whom they are ultimately to be returned. The companies are simply acting as trustees or custodians of these savings, and, in common with other trustees, the assets in which these savings may be invested are prescribed and limited by law. There exists, of course, in most of our Canadian companies a shareholders' interest which, however, is small and of little account, while in the large American companies the shareholders' interest is entirely negligible or non-existent. Since the life insurance business is of a quasi-public nature there has developed a close government supervision over its affairs, with the result that the companies are subjected to regular extensive examinations and also are required to prepare and file periodically complete detailed reports of their business.

In all popular discussions of death rates or of the probable duration of human life one finds the phrase "according to the mortality table." Sometimes it even appears that a writer is assuming that a definite law of mortality has been discovered from which deviations are not to be expected and which has been embodied in the mortality table. Every serious student of the subject knows that this is far from the truth and that there are many mortality tables, each representing the mortality which was experienced by a specified group of lives during a specified time.To the actuary, any mortality table is simply a mathematical tool with which to study such problems as population growth or change, or to calculate the monetary values of benefits dependent on life contingencies. It is a tool in the same sense that a gauge is a tool for a machinist. In some parts of a machinist's work only the most accurate precision gauges are acceptable, and similarly in calculating premiums for non-participating insurance or rates for life annuities, the actuary must use the most accurate and up-to-date mortality table available. On the other hand, a machinist may use a less exact gauge for other types of work where conditions are suitable. For certain purposes such as calculating policy liabilities, the actuary has a corresponding choice, for, as will appear later in the paper, reserves by all mortality tables are remarkably similar.