Journal of Social Science (Volume 27) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE WORK OF TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. A REPORT BY THE GENERAL SECRETARY, F. B. SANBORN, OF CONCORD, MASS. READ AT THE QUARTER-CENTENNIAL MEETING OF THE AMERICAN SOCIAL SCIENCE ASSOCIATION AT SARATOGA, SEPT. I, 1890. Mr. President and Members of the Association, ? In this age of anniversaries, we are met to-night to keep our first quarter-centennial; and we are exact to' the year, if not to the day. It was on the 2d of August, 1865, that, as Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of State Charities, I drew up the call for a meeting in the State House at Boston, which assembled Oct. 4, 1865, and there organized the "American Association for the Promotion of Social Science," whose twenty-sixth general meeting we are holding tonight. At that assembly of 1865, the then Governor of Massachusetts, John Albion Andrew, presided, and about three hundred persons, many of them eminent in science, in philanthropy or in literature, took part in the proceedings. As organized, the Association consisted of 175 members, of whom, as I compute, only about sixty are now living, several persons of great eminence having died since last we met here. Of those living many have grown old and are no longer able to take part with us; others are enfeebled by illness, resident in distant regions, or so occupied with other cares that they no longer continue their membership. Their places have been taken by others, from time to time, of whom also hundreds have died or grown old, or for various causes withdrawn from active participation in our work. At present we have a fluctuating membership of from 250 to 300 persons, and the co-operation each year of a few other persons who are not members, but who render us occasional and important service. The limits of our country and of our field of study are so vast that...