January 10, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



71 



Expenditures op the Four Societies 

 Fiscal Year 1910 



1 Total 819,270 ; analyzed into items by guess. 



2 Total 3,348 ; analyzed into two items by guess. 



nearly twice as many members as any of the 

 other associations. None of the societies ap- 

 parently makes a practise of soliciting life 

 memberships. 



The income from publications also varies, 

 the Academy alone of the four societies hav- 

 ing a notable sale for its publications outside 

 its own members. The accounts of that so- 

 ciety do not make a distinction between out- 

 side subscriptions and the sales of numbers 

 to members of the society. 



The Academy and the American Historical 

 Association both have invested funds which 

 add considerably to the income. 



The Academy and the Economic Association 

 in the year under review received considerable 

 sums as contributions outright or as guaran- 

 tees for some special enterprise. 



The income of the societies varies from 

 $3,600 to $40,000 a year. Those incomes, what- 

 ever their derivation or their source, should 

 be considered as trusts to be administered for 

 the benefit of the field of investigation and 

 study represented by the society. All four of 



the societies have systems of regular publica- 

 tions which, in order to furnish a basis of 

 comparison, have been calculated according to 

 the number of thousand words. The Annual 

 Report of the American Historical Associa- 

 tion is printed by the federal government, 

 which much relieves its budget. Each of the 

 societies maintains a periodical — that of the 

 Academy considerably the most voluminous. 

 The Historical Association also publishes a 

 prize essay, which however pays for itself out 

 of sales. 



It is difficult to ascertain from the accounts 

 precisely how much these publications cost; 

 but by a careful study and aggregation of 

 items, it appears that the Academy pays $32.50 

 per 1,000 words, as against an average of about 

 $10.50 by the other three associations. The 

 edition of the Annals of the academy is 

 larger — perhaps twice as large — as any of the 

 other three societies, but anybody knows that 

 when plates are once made, the expense of 

 running off additional copies is a compara- 

 tively small matter. On the other hand, the 

 Academy's cost of publication is relieved by 

 about $8,000 of receipts. Here again the 

 comparison is confused because the economic 

 and historical periodicals pay contributors. 

 Making allowance for those items it would ap- 

 pear that the net cost per words for the Acad- 

 emy is from two to three times that of the two 

 sister societies. 



In all the societies the publication forms 

 one of three principal groups of expenditure. 

 The Academy lumps under the head of 

 " Printing, stationery and postage in connec- 

 tion with publication of Annals and with gen- 

 eral correspondence, $19,269.82." It is abso- 

 lutely impossible from these figures to sub- 

 divide between general administration and 

 publication; and therefore $3,000 is by guess 

 assigned to administration out of the total 

 sum. On the basis of the paying members, 

 the administration per member is about the 

 same, but of course it ought to be distinctly 

 less per capita for the larger society. The 

 same remark applies to the per capita cost for 

 publications : one of the advantages of a large 

 membership is that it should reduce all print- 



