Celebration of the Fiftieth Anniversary. Ixxv 



tiou of leading scientists ; its methods and purposes were so 

 wisely adjusted to the needs of the capital and the country 

 that it has become the largest geographic society in the world 

 and one of the most effective scientific-educational organiza- 

 tions of the United States. Its active membership extends 

 into every State in the Union and every civilized land ; and I 

 feel a peculiar pleasure in conveying to the St. Louis Academy 

 of Science greetings on behalf of the ten thousand members 

 of our cosmoplitan National Geographic Society. 



At every stage of their growth the scientific organizations 

 of Washington have both profited by the centralizing influ- 

 ence attending their position in the national capital and 

 reflected this influence to all parts of the country; so that all 

 of the societies situate on the north bank of the Potomac are 

 measurably national in character and have helped promote the 

 development of wholly national organizations. Among these 

 there is one which I may venture informally to represent as 

 chief founder and first president — i.e., the American Anthro- 

 pological Association ; for on behalf of the science for which 

 this Association stands I may speak with confidence concern- 

 ing the career of Saint Louis Academy of Science, and may 

 previse a future for the Academy even brighter than its 

 notable past. It is the business of the anthropologist to 

 watch the drift of things human, to note the progress of men 

 and institutions ; and I may summarize and integrate the ex- 

 pressions of preceding speakers who have pointed out the 

 enormous progress made in the different branches of science 

 during the last half -century by saying that within the fifty 

 years of its existence Saint Louis Academy of Science has 

 witnessed a full half of the growth of that consciously organ- 

 ized knowledge known as Science. Perhaps this estimate 

 might seem excessive to exponents of those branches of 

 knowledge less intimately connected with the daily and yearly 

 progress of mankind, the daily and hourly extension of con- 

 quest over Nature ; but the vista of Anthropology is broad 

 and clear — Anthropology, in truth, is the Science of Science- 

 makers — and full of promise ; for in the light of human facts 

 and faculties it is clear that the law of Progress is cumulative. 



