The sun., 1909-12-30
LEARNED MEN AT BREAKFAST
70 ORDINARY FOLKS 1T WAS
JUST LIKE A DINNER.
HIsfsrsSus. 'Bconeuists. Blbiiosrapnees
aud Others Gather at Neon foT =
Meal ami Have POst-PrandIAl Oratory
and tho Usual Guips and Jests.

Rnh the Usual Guips and Jesss.
The economists. the historians. anti
q,iarians. statisticians and photographers
who have combined to make Manhattan
Island topheavy with erudition during
their present week long joint conferences
gave an, impulse TO the English daylight
agitation yesterday by holding a regular
banquet OF the old night style in the after
noon. ts,
Out OF courtesy to established custom
the 500 who sat down 60 refresh themselves
with quail la Josephus and sorbet John
Stuart Mill In the ballroom OF the Waldorf
at 1880 clock called their collation. and the
oratory that was its concomitant a break
fast, but the lights, the speakers table
on high and the after dinner jest and
appeal to reason were nothing IL not Of the
banquet vivacious.
Rysn II the busy students OF profundi-
ties did crowd their morning and afternoon
sessi0ns a little to permit OF three hours
pleasure in the middle OF the day and
threw away their breakfast cigars to
plunge directly into more meetings and
discussions there was nothing OF. the
scientific or the antiquarian about that
breakfast. Prof. William NJ. Sloane OF
Qplurnhia presided as the midday toast
master and to the right and left Of him
g the long guests table sat men whose
Hmes are great In the scholastic world.
Aesidents Lowell OF Harvard and Hadley
~ Vale were his companions. With him.
TOO, sat Gen. Horace Porter. Joseph III.
9hoats. Ambassador James Brvce. henry
Uggs. representing the Royal Economic
SBciety Of Great Britain; @. w. Prothero
IL England. Edusrd Meyer, the historian
a. Berlin; II. T. Colenbrander. represent
ing the historical societies of Holland; r.
Hfamira OF Oviedo Spain; Camille Enlart
Gom Paris; Herbert l.. Fisher OF New
College, Oxford; Sir Horace Plunkett OF
Ireland and other OF the foreign delegates
to the Joint conference.
Prof. Albert B. Hart, president Of the
american Historical Association. was the
q the American students to those who
had come from abroad. Prof. Hart
sfarted right out by enying that he and all
the others who had tourneyed to New
York to meet in frate' nal and intellectual
dpnclave were pak.ns, but he gave the
"A pagan 10 not what the general ac-
doptancs OF ne word would seem to in
dicate,' said he He is not merely a
Harsee or a Buddhist or a Unitarian. A
r&gan, by the strict derivation Of the
word. is an outsider. commuter. We
pAGans who are nurtured on the Spring
deld RepH5tican and the Louisville Cow
ySer-tsarnGi. as tho case may be. had
been wont TO believesthat New York was
only a greater Boston or a lesser Chicago
until we came here and saw Tor ourselves
what this city really is. We were told
at the first welcoming meeting on last
Monday night that New York was not
= sordid place where people only made
money. In fact 1 think a good many
people throughout tho country thought
that Now Y orkers were not money makers
during a certain unfortunate financial
stringency two years ago"
Prof. Hart's kindness expanded as he
proceeded. Ours was a city, he said
which summed up all the elements Of
American life and summed them up in a
way dattering on the whole to the repu-
tatiQn Of America.
a the present moment 10 significant,
Here are hived in a community OF steel
and stone men infinitely practical and mon
OF learning who are met on a common
ground. The scholar is becoming every
Gay % yr STs the .%S aP Of ndn and t5s 1Ss
sch0iar, I'm the field which most nearly
touches his personal interest. An scholars
whose lives are spent in the pursuit and
assassination Of knowledge are brethren.
We are all the sons OF Europe. and the
day has gone by when America boasts
Henry Higgs OF the Royal Economic
Society OF London Spoke about the in
deh4edness TO American economists
under which British scholars of that
tS~ medium Of Amcrioans hsd recent
German Thought on the abstruse science
been oopyeyed to the British scholars. Once
a ptrb1isher of a German wol K on meta