SOCIETIES
The 100th anniversary of the founding of the Society was celebrated on Tuesday evening, Nov. 22, 1904, by a banquet. The president announced that Mr. Henry Dexter, a fellow member had presented to the Society the sum of $150,000, and in addition the granite for the entire front of the central portion of the new building, Central Park West, 76th–77th Sts. A medal in bronze and silver has been struck to commemorate the founding of the institution.
At an annual meeting (Jan. 3d, 1905), of the Society, the following officers were elected for the ensuing year: President, Samuel V. Hoffman; first vice-president, Frederic W. Jackson; second vice-president, Francis R. Schell; foreign corresponding secretary, Archer M. Huntington; domestic corresponding secretary, George R. Schieffelin; recording secretary, Acosta Nichols; treasurer, Charles A. Sherman; librarian, Robert H. Kelby.
At a stated meeting held February 7th, Mr. A. Emerson Palmer, Secretary of Board of Education, read a very interesting and instructive address on “A Century of Public Schools in the City of New York,” with stereopticon illustrations.
The Society resolved to take measures to celebrate in 1909 the ter-centenary of the discovery of this part of North America by Henry Hudson, the 200th anniversary of that event having been celebrated by the Society on September 4th, 1809.
At the annual meeting Jan. 10, Ex-Chief Justice Stiness paid a glowing tribute to the character and ability of the late Judge Horatio Rogers, formerly President of the Society. Prof. Albert Harkness of Brown University, the present president delivered a valuable address on “Some Phases in the Development of History.” The librarian, Mr. Brigham, in the course of his report on the accessions to the library during 1904, made this remark, which may be commended to the attention of those who have accumulations of such material which seem to them only fit to be burnt, as occupying space, and not even worth offering for the acceptance of any library of reference: “In many cases these gifts have been made with the apology that they were too trivial, and hardly worth the acceptance. But it is the ephemeral pamphlet and the unimportant report that is likely to be asked for by the next generation, just as we to-day are searching, too often in vain, for the transitory publication of a half century ago.”