ALICE WATTS HOSTETLER. 
F IVE of ( the men who were among 
the founders of the Cosmos 
Club 50 years ago will celebrate 
tomorrow the golden anni- 
versary of that event. 
Dr. W. H. Holmes, Dr. Henry S. 
Pritchett, Dr. Otto H. Tittmann, Dr. 
H. C. Yarrow and H. W. Henshaw 
are scholars whose names graced the 
first roll of the club and are on the 
list of members today. Dr. Holmes 
and Dr. Pritchett will speak at the 
fiftieth anniversary meeting, over 
which the president of the club, 
Wendell Phillips Stafford, associate 
■justice of the Supreme Court of the 
District of Columbia, will preside. 
Although he was only eight years 
from his college graduation at the 
time he became one of the founders 
of the club, William Henry Holmes 
had already established himself as a 
young man who would merit the hon- 
ors which later came to him. As di- 
rector of the National Gallery of Art. 
he looks back over a series of posi- 
tions, any one of which would honor 
a man. He has been chief of the 
Bureau of American Ethnology, cu- 
rator of anthropology of the Na- 
tional Museum and of 1 the Art Gallery. 
He is a member of a long list of hon- 
orary societies and was president of 
the Washington Academy of Sciences. 
Dr. Pritchett has engaged in im- 
portant expeditions for astronomical 
investigation, has been president of 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 
is president of the Carnegie Founda- 
tion for Advancement of Teaching and 
wears the rosette of the Legion of 
Honor. 
The three other living founders 
achieved fame in different lines, Mr. 
Henshaw as a naturalist, Dr. Yarrow 
as a surgeon and Dr. Tittmann as a 
geodesist. Dr. Yarrow was surgeon 
and naturalist for the expedition ex- 
ploring the territory west of the 100th 
meridian, member of the medical fac- 
ulty of George Washington University 
for 30 years, and curator of reptiles 
of the United States National Mu- 
seum. It was Dr. Tittmann who repre- 
sented the United States in settling 
the boundary between Alaska and 
Canada. He has been superintendent 
of the United States Coast and Geo- 
detic Survey and president of the Na- 
tional Geographic Society. 
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Leland Ossian Howard is chairman of 
the committee which is arranging for 
the gathering whose brilliance, if meas- 
ured in watts, would rival Broadway at 
night. Dr. Roland Cotton Smith, known 
in Washington as the former rector of 
St. John’s, will return for the occasion 
as a speaker. Dr. Harvey Wiley, George 
Otis Smith, Charles E. Munroe and 
Marcus Benjamin will address the 
audience of scholars. If their engage- 
ments will permit, Ray Standard Baker, 
Gifford Pinchot and Livingston Far- 
rand, president of Cornell University, 
will come to speak. 
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npHERE are 59 names written on the 
-*■ page of the minutes of the Cosmos 
Club, dated January 6, 1879, and before 
the date of the annual election January 
13 one more was added, making the 
original 60 members planned for. In 
a letter inviting the 60 charter members 
to form a club which today is world 
renowned, John W. Powell, the first 
president, outlined the purposes and 
reasons for the organization of a “social 
club in Washington on the models of 
the Century Club of New York and the 
Scientific Club of London, to be called 
the Scientific Club of Washington, and 
to be composed of ‘men devoted to or 
interested in science, professionally or 
otherwise.’ ” He elaborated the idea by 
adding, “It is conceived that such an 
organization for purely social purposes 
is necessary in this city. It is intended 
to procure clubrooms in some central 
part of the city, which are to be open 
during the afternoon and evening only; 
to form a library of periodicals; to pro- 
vide only extremely simple refresh- 
ments, at least at first, and, in general, 
to make a place where It will be pos- 
sible for members of the club to meet 
socially at any time under pleasant sur- 
roundings.” 
He was authorized to send out this 
letter at a preliminary meeting held in 
his home on November 1.6, 1878, when 
a group of men of gregarious instincts 
with scientific tastes laid the founda- 
tion of the club which honors men in 
bestowing membership. 
It is not surprising but rather quite 
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natural that a club of this kind should 
develop in Washington, for it has been 
pointed out that the time was ripe for; 
its formation. Washington with its 
scientific bureaus was a lodestone' 
which attracted brilliant men. As the 
scientific and governmental center of 
the United States, it invited more dis- 
tinguished men in sciende and public 
service than any other city. Artists and 
literary men of distinction were found 
here, too. 
In the Coast and Geodetic and Geolog- 
ical Surveys, the Bureau of Entomology, 
the Naval Observatory, the Signal S'erv-,; 
ice — now the Weather Bureau — in 
other governmental departments, and 
the Smithsonian Institution were men 
who had common interests. To them 
a place for the exchange of ideas and 
the meeting of others with similar tastes 
was valuable and pleasurable. There 
were other men in the District of Co 
lumbia eligible to membership, who had 
come to the Capital to conduct research 
work at the Library of Congress or in 
many of the departments. 
* * * * 
A LTHOUGH in forming, a club which 
cultivated scientific and art in 
terests the suggestion was made that 
the one in Washington be like the 
Century Club of New York, it was not 
the aim, nor has it been the result, to 
imitate it exactly. Membership in the 
Cosmos Club is an honor, but it is not 
meant to be one crowning a man’s 
achievements. Rather it is to stimulate, 
the men who are engaged in making' 
their mark in the learned world. In-i 
stead of a staid club where only those; 
who have arrived may bask in the glory 
of their achievements, it is a place foi 
them to enjoy while they are making r 
the grade. 
There was a club back in those times 
which by a two-part system satisfied 
both the minds and the gregarious in- 
stincts of men of brains. At .the meet-1 
ings of the Philosophical Society held 
in Ford’s Theater, on Tenth street 
formal papers were read to men whi 
were capable of understanding them 
The only visitors at these meetings were 
others of established reputation in 
science or philosophy. After a stimulat- 
ing program on an abstruse subject it 
was customary for those present to en- 
joy social contacts by adjourning to a 
nearby restaurant for beer and pretzels 
It was but ahother step to bind cold 
science and the social amenities into a 
club. Many members of the Philosophi- 
cal Society upon invitation became 
members of the Cosmos Club. 
It was not by chance that this more 
completely organized group received the 
name that signifies “the world as an 
orderly system.” 
The name of the club was chosen by 
ballot. Out of 27 votes cast, 21 were in 
favor of the name “Cosmos.” “Kosmos,” 
“Scientific” and “Joseph Henry” were 
other names considered. When it was 
pointed out that consistency demanded 
'the spelling of “club” with “K” if Cos- 
mos were spelled that, way, the founders 
decided to cling to the alliterative anc 
usual C’s. 
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