Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-01-30


American Historical AsSocia-
ton, now that newspapers
have been saying so much ABOUT ats
campaign for increase of endowment,
and what il has done, and what IT
means to do If it obtains the hoped
for million of dollars. 1t may we'll De
doubted, however, whether many
readers in Washington, though fun
hundred Of its 1920 members live here.
are aware how largely it is connected
with our city, in how real sense IL
is Washington institution.
The society has had it's head
quarters in Washington since 1883.
1t was then incorporated by act OF
Congress. 1t is affiliated to the
Smithsonian Institution, and through
that institution makes an annual re-
port, which Is printed at the Govern
ment Printing Office as a congress
sional document. Twelve Of its forty
two annual meetings have been held
in Washington, and the next, that of
December, 1927, is 70 be held here.
It's second president, the venerable
George Bancroft, was. one might al
most say, lifelong resident of Wash
ington, and a half dozen of his sue
cessors have been residents of the city.
The connection of Washington with
a national historical society goes back
indeed much farther than all this.
Ninety-one or ninety-two years ago,
in October, 1895, a group of public
men and Washington citizens, inter
ested In history. organized the Amer
lean Historical Society, which existed
for a few years, published one volume
of transactions" and then died.
Peter Force was its animating spirit,
and the volume, which the curious
may see at the Library of Congress.
contained ''discour9es" delivered be-
fore the society at it's annual meetings
of 1886 and 1897 by Lewis Cass, Secre-
tary OF War, and Levi Woodbury.,
Secretary of the Treasury. But the
time was not ripe for national his
torical society having sufficient vigor
to insure long life.
The present American Historical
Association was not indeed founded in
Washington, but it came here very
soon. 1t was organized at a meeting
held in q hotel at Saratoga in Sep
TENDER, 1884, chiefly by the efforts of
Herbert =. Adams. young and active
minded professor Of history in the
John Hopkins University, who was
its secretary and chief motive power
throughout the remaining years of the
nineteenth century and of his life.
Forty-one persons came together TO
found the society. of whom 10 are Stlll
liying--among them DR.. Clarence w.
Bowen Of New York, who for SO years
was the society treasurer, and 10
whom 1t is greatly indebted for its
sound financial condition; Profs. Ed
ward Charming and Ephriam Elmer
ton of Harvard University, and the
writer Of these lines. Older men.
however, had the chief part in found
inp n
drew d. White of Cornell who was
made the first president; Justin Win
sor, of Harvard, Charles Kendall
Adams, then professor in the Univer-
sity Of Michigan, afterward president
of Cornell and the University of Wis
consin; Moses Colt Tyler, professor in
Cornell, and Gen Francis A. Walker,
president of the Massachusetts School
of Technology.
Those years from 1876 to 1888 We're
marked by a wonderful crop of ma
tional organizations of specialists in
this or that branch of science or learn
ing. The American Chemical Society,
which now has 200 members was
founded In 1876, the Archaeological So
ciety Of America in 1879 and quickly
these were followed by national or
CARNATIONS of the specialists in en-
cheering, modern language study, his
tory, economics, geology and nathe-
mates.
The growth and furnishing of such
societies has made an immense diff
fernce in American scholarship and
science. I can well remember that,
| before the foundation of these socie-
ties, it was rare thing for a profess
sor of Latin or of physics in any col
lege to know half a dozen professors
of Latin or of physics in other col
leges. Nowadays all such men are
bound together in close association, by
correspondence and annual meetings
and the publications of their societies.
| They know each other Well, unite
their efforts for all sorts of profess
sional objects, with q wide outlook
| which their predecessors could not
have, and constitute a force which in
these last 40 years has raised all va
rieties of learning and science to
levels not dreamed of in 1884.
4 x x X
IN April, 1886, a year and seven
months after its foundation, the
young American Historical Associa-
ton, which already had 400 members,
came to Washington for its third
meeting. The meeting was a notable
one, which fingers wildly in memory.
The veteran historian, George Ban
croft, second president of the society
the personal embodiment of the his
toric spirit in these United States,
presided at several of the sessions. He
was In his seth year, but still spright-
ly and active. Some of the older resi-