ANNUAL ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. XXXVII 
the most widely known and they are among the best of our local 
societies. Many others have been established or revived recently, 
and some of them are doing good work. Among those which have 
taken a high standing by the publication of valuable memoirs is 
the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences. Such societies 
deserve a hearty support, and by their encouragement and direction 
of local talent can render valuable service to science. But these 
societies are too numerous to mention here. 
I cannot, however, pass from the two elder societies without notic- 
ing in the first place the gradual cessation of their memoirs and the 
falling into what are styled “proceedings” for publication. It 
seems to me a matter of regret that this should happen. Such pub- 
lications are apt to degenerate into a dry account of meetings, and 
elections, and deaths and resignations, and lists of members. If this is 
all a society is able to do it may be tolerated for awhile, but it is a 
condition which should be outgrown. I think that keeping up a 
good form for printing memoirs tends to elevate the character of a 
society and to incite members to good works. 
There is another matter in connection with these two elder socie- 
ties which is curious and worthy of mention. Each of them had a 
list of foreign honorary members. It is interesting now after the 
lapse of a century to examine these lists, and to see what kind of 
men were selected for such honors, and also to see how far the 
judgment of the philosophers has been confirmed by time, which 
makes such havoc with the estimates of men. At the time of the 
organization of the American Philosophical Society, Euler was the 
jeading mathematician of Europe. He was then sixty-two years 
old and at the height ofhis reputation. There is hardly a branch 
of mathematics which Euler had not enriched by his ingenious and 
wonderfully prolificlabors. He had worked in the theory of numbers, 
in all parts of the calculus, and had laid the foundations of the cal- 
culus of variations. He wrote a complete treatise on dioptrics, made 
a laborious and valuable investigation of the lunar theory, and ap- 
plied mathematical theories to a very great number of physical 
questions. In 1766 he became blind by his incessant labors, but still 
continued his work. Ido not find the name of Leonard Euler in 
the list of the fifty-five foreign associates of the American Philosoph- 
ical Society. The successor of Euler as the leading mathematician 
of the world was Lagrange. The Mecanique Analytique was not 
published until 1788, but Lagrange had shown his power in a great 
