Addresses from Sister Societies 237 



of his birth. And we fervently hope that this society, 

 one of his first and greatest memorials, may long survive 

 to give ever fresh dignity to his illustrious name. 



The American Academy was founded in 1780, thirty- 

 seven years later than your society. These venerable 

 associations, which saw the nation established and helped 

 in no small measure in its establishment, have always 

 striven to be national in their character. Though the 

 men who were incorporated as the American Academy 

 in 1780 were all citizens of Massachusetts, among them 

 being John Adams, Samuel Adams, and John Hancock, 

 in less than nine months we find on its roll Benjamin 

 Franklin of Philadelphia, and George Washington of 

 Mt. Vernon, Virginia; and not much later Thomas Jef- 

 ferson, Benjamin Rush, John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, 

 and James Madison, all as ordinary members, with full 

 rights and privileges. Both John Adams and John 

 Quincy Adams retained the presidency of the Academy 

 while they held the presidency of the United States. 



We feel that we cannot better express the high re- 

 gard in which our Academy holds the Philosophical 

 Society than by repeating the words with which the late 

 Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, the orator of the Academy 

 on its hundredth anniversary in 1880, greeted the dele- 

 gates of this Society. After alluding to the Old South 

 Meeting house in Boston, in which he was speaking, as 

 the place where the infant child of an humble tallow- 



