The Outlook for American Oriental Studies

SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO, in March, 1843, the American Oriental Society was incorporated, by the laws of the State of Massachusetts. Many of us who are present today remember the celebration of the semi-centennial of the Society in Boston, in 1893. The interval of twenty-five years seems to us a short one, though it has witnessed some important changes, and a steady advance in the most of the activities represented by our organization. There is an obvious fitness in the accidental circumstance that whereas the completion of fifty years of work was commemorated in Boston, where the Society was founded, the present celebration takes place in New Haven, which in former years shared with Boston the honor of being the chief place of meeting, and now may justly claim to be the true center, since it is the home of the Society's library and the place where its Journal is printed. I shall not dwell upon past history, though the temptation to do so is strong at this time, in the city which was the home of Salisbury and Whitney and others whom the world of scholars will always delight to honor. Other speakers will call them to mind in the course of our meeting. It has seemed to me suitable, on this anniversary, to give the President's address a more general character than usual. Instead of choosing some subject of which I have special expert knowledge, I shall rehearse very briefly things which you all know; hoping as I do so that the occasion and the interest of the matters to be considered may combine to make the recital stimulating. I cannot claim to speak for the Society, even in all the cases where I employ the first person plural. I am merely expressing my own opinions. The present time is in many ways a critical one for oriental

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