~ 1891] Archeology and Ethnology. i, 181 
scientific value and in public interest with the average lecture delivered 
at the National Museum, and the attendance thereof from 600 to 1000 
at each lecture is to my mind proof that if the opportunity were offered 
the public would attend in large, if not in equal, numbers the meetings 
of this society, to hear the papers and discussions of its members. 
think this fact illustrates the possibility of success in throwing open our 
meetings to the public. That it did not attend the meetings at Col- 
umbia College may have been due to the failure of detail in announce- 
“ment, advertisement, ete 
I decline to stand as an apologist for our society ; I do not excuse it 
in any comparison with that of Paris or London, on account of our 
youth as a nation or sparseness of our population. I would not plead 
the baby act as a reason for our poverty. We are located at the capital, 
and we possess all the advantages to be derived therefrom. We are a 
nation of sixty. millions of people. We are as numerous, as rich, as 
capable, and have in every way equal opportunities with either the 
French, English, or any other nation to study the science of anthro- 
pology, whether prehistoric or otherwise, to do serious work which 
shall be of equal value; and, repeating what I said at the com- 
mencement of this chapter, I know no satisfactory reason why the 
Society of Anthropology at Washington should not be the equal in any 
and every respect with that at Paris, or with those in any other part of 
the world. 
It has been an aspiration of mine that our society should be strong 
and powerful; that it should be at the head of kindred societies, and 
be the acknowledged authority of our science, not only in our own 
country, but that it should be its representative in foreign countries. I 
have hoped that every discovery of importance made within our coun- 
try should be reported to it; that every question arising therefrom 
should be sent to it for resolution ; that disputed points should be sub- 
mitted to it for its opinion. I desire to see it conservative, dignified, 
learned, wise, and that it should occupy such acknowledged rank and 
speak with such acknowledged authority as that no anthropologist o 
prominence but would feel himself flattered by the use of its means to 
make known his opinions to the world, nor would one venture eee: 
lish to the world any new or untried theory in regard to the science 
except he had first sought to obtain our approval and the weight 
of our authority. I confess to a feeling of annoyance when the Hon. 
Charles Francis Adams, president of the Pacific Railroad, made or re- 
ceived from another the discovery of the statuette, said to be of human 
origin, and which came from the’ artesian well in Idaho, he should 
