PROCEEDINGS. ANNUAL MEETING, OCTOBER 24, 1906, AT THE HALL OF THE The meeting was called to order at 10.30 A. M., Rev. EDWARD Members present in order of their seniority of membership: Edward E. Hale, Nathaniel Paine, Samuel A. Green, Edward L. Davis, James F. Hunnewell, Edward H. Hall, Charles C. Smith, Edmund M. Barton, Franklin B. Dexter, Charles A. Chase, Samuel S. Green, Andrew McF. Davis, Solomon Lincoln, Frederic W. Putnam, Daniel Merriman, William B. Weeden, Reuben Colton, Henry H. Edes, George E. Francis, G. Stanley Hall, William E. Foster, Charles P. Bowditch, Francis H. Dewey, Carroll D. Wright, Henry A. Marsh, John Green, Wm. DeLoss Love, William T. Forbes, Leonard P. Kinnicutt, George H. Haynes, Waldo Lincoln, Edward S. Morse, George P. Winship, A. Lawrence Rotch, Samuel Utley, James W. Brooks, E. Harlow Russell, Benjamin T. Hill, Edmund A. Engler, Alexander F. Chamberlain, William MacDonald, Alexander H. Vinton, Deloraine P. Corey, Clarence S. Brigham. Opening remarks of Dr. HALE: The unexpected death of our President, honored and beloved, makes our meeting to-day a sad one. A year ago when the American Antiquarian Society met, every one of us hoped-may I not say all of us expected-that for many 36 years the Society would enjoy the great benefit of his counsel and achievement in our behaE. Eis desti makes it necessary that I should preside to-day, until the Society makes the choice of his successor, as directed by its constitution. But you must not expect any such review of the year which has passed since our last anniversay as he would have been so glad to make. It would be singey mack modesty i I did not name among the imporisan contributions ir American history which the year has brought a hight, the instructive and invaluable papers przed in our reedings. The yes has see the connietion of Mr. Rhodes's History of the Rebellion, wiari wil be the standard history of that great crisis. In Las magnificent edition of Jacques Cartier's voyages our distinguished associate, Mr. Baxter, the President of the Misine Estorical Society, has presented to the worit the origins, documents as to the discovery of the St. Lao Latrace and Canada, in a form which commands aUTLETSTJÓR Mr. Worthington C. Ford has prepared for the Library of Congress the midesing kao vatustie Journal of the Continental Congress, from us meeting. Sept. 5, 1774, until its dissolution Areas of Charles Thomson, its secretary, had led superficas resders- men le myself, for instanceto suppose that this valuable record of years of crisis, and of the first importance, had been destroyed by him. But it proves that in that mastne sath readers were mistaken, as they are apt to be; and the pubäestion of these six volumes by the Government gres to us now a very valuable addition to our knowledge of those times. The Proceedings of the Governors of New Amsterdam are, perhaps, chiefly of a local interest, and to students in the City of New York they have been accessible before now. But the reprint, in an elegant form by the Burrows Brothers Company of Cleveland, this year, enables students of history everywhere to consult these records. The second centennial of Franklin's birth was fitly celebrated by the American Philosophical Society, by a distinguished assembly of scholars from all parts of America. The American Antiquarian Society was represented by Andrew McFarland Davis of the Council. *Hatory of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the Restoration of Home Rule in the South, 1877.” The most remarkable event of the year in discovery was the passage through Behring Strait southward, Aug. 6th, of the Norwegian sloop Gjöa, under the command of Capt. Roald Amundsen. He is the first navigator who has brought his vessel through the Arctic ocean in our hemisphere. Capt. Amundsen's great success was won when he brought his little ship through the water, while his predecessors had been blocked by ice. In token of the courage and perseverance which have achieved this great voyage, the Council proposes the name of Capt. Amundsen as a candidate for foreign membership of the Antiquarian Society. It was in this way that our Society recognized the achievement of Capt. Robert McClure, whom the Queen afterward knighted in token of his success. The suggestion was made at the Annual Meeting more than half a century ago, that every year the Antiquarian Society should provide for the issue of a gold medal, which should commemorate in its design and inscription the greatest event in American history in that year. If in 1493 such a medal had been struck by Ferdinand and Isabella, or by the University of Salamanca, would it or would it not have signalized the arrival of a fishing boat, called the Nina, at the Port of Palos, announcing the discovery of two or three islands in the West Indies? The Society has never found it desirable to issue such a medal, conscious perhaps, always, of a certain difficulty in our seeing the world as the future will see it. Thus the year 1795 struck no medal to announce Eli Whitney's cotton gin, and 1807 struck no medal to announce Fulton's first voyage up the Hudson River in the Clermont. In the last summer, since I have known that I must preside at this Anniversary, I have begged one and another of our friends, distinguished in their knowledge of history and of events, to tell me which is the greatest event which has transpired since October 24, 1905. One of them said in reply, "It is hard to write a name in water; while the tide of history is on the flow, I cannot write it as I shall be able to write it on the wet sands of the beach afterward." I offer the subject as one for conversation, if time permits, to-day. I will merely remark that each of my advisers gave a different answer. The first said that the active erection of Interierence of te em givernent interstate summers marks in ea if he very irst imporkace n meresa usurt De semi saut a the PanAneresa Congres und versly imphant sur in Souch Aneres marsel ze tegnning of American Šziemacy, ʼn viem ze vide nanent, North and South 228 11 STerzag ze one cene, which before wis mrset somevint verly by me Tured States alone. A traseros Cact Aminusen e adventure is cae of mese e vien sa te measured by the nicest and put in paper and so is the most in subject for Terson. Ainura aunselor gris as an event of the first importance, emag ʼn Ameris as the Chinese entre has this year town of al presences of the exclu sice, offertoric of Sracters, 20 has remained itself seriously to the armor sa niemacy of the rest of the Coed States partiearly, says the vest. 1906, vill vas te steely known in history as the year when me ne castlecce of the people of Americs and town new standards and higher deals for what is called the bostess word in the management of its dai'r afairs the world. A sit, stessing or Fortunately it is not for the scang president of this Society to weigh against each other such vaatie opinions of such distinguished men, but it is a piessure to throw them into the urn of our Conversion K-By. i may be possible as Virgil says, when he speaks of the vancos elements in compounding a salad, to make E pluribus unum." The report of the Counel, by SANTE SWEPT GREEN, A. M., and Dr. EDMUND A. ENGLER was read by Mr. GREEN. The Hon. EDWARD L. DAVIS explained the amendment to the By-laws offered by the Council, and on his motion it was adopted as follows: ARTICLE XVI.-The Annual Meeting of the Society shall be held every year at the Library Building of the Society in Worcester, on the third Wednesday of October: the Semi-annual Meeting shall be held in Boston every year, on the third Wednesday of April at such place as the Council shall designate. The hour of each meeting shall be 10.30 o'clock A. M., unless otherwise ordered by the Council. Moretum, line 103. |