Academicians

Met in Manhattan the National Academy of Arts and Letters, elected five new members, bringing its total to an august SO. The five: ex-Senator Albert J. Beveridge, author of The Life of John Marshall; Royal Cortissoz, art critic; Henry K. Hadley, composer; Charles Downer Hazen, historian; Willard L. Metcalf, artist.

Deliberations followed. It was decided to give an Academy gold medal to Walter Hampden, actor, "for good diction on the stage"; an Institute gold medal to Edith Wharton, author, for her achievements in fiction. Ossip Gabrilowitsch, son-in-law of Mark Twain, late Academician, played for the session. In the absence of Professor William Milligan Sloane, Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, chancellor, presided.

The Academy is the Upper House, of the National Institute of Arts and Letters organized in 1898 for the purpose of protecting and furthering Art, Music, Literature in the U.S. Notable achievement in one of these fields is the first qualification for membership. Enrollment in the Institute is limited to 250. Members of the Academy are chosen from members of the Institute; their number cannot exceed 50. Each year the Academy awards gold medals to such citizens of the U.S. who, though not members of the Institute, have yet made some important original contribution to Arts or Letters.

Present members of the Academy: John S. Sargent, Daniel C. French, James F. Rhodes, William M. Sloane, Robert U. Johnson, George W. Cable, Henry van Dyke, William C. Brownell, Arthur T. Hadley, Edwin H. Blashfield, Thomas Hastings, Brander Matthews, George E. Woodberry, George W. Chadwick, Lockwood De Forest, William R. Mead, Bliss Perry, A. Lawrence Lowell, Nicholas M. Butler, Paul W. Bartlett, Owen Wister, Herbert Adams, Augustus Thomas, Timothy Cole, Cass Gilbert, Robert Grant, Frederick MacMonnies, William GilIett, Paul E. More, Gari Melchers, Elihu Vedder, Brand Whitlock, Hamlin Garland, Paul Shorey, Charles A. Platt, Archer M. Huntington, Childe Hassam, David J. Hill, Lorado Taft, Booth Tarkington, Charles D. Gibson, Joseph Pennell, Stuart Sherman, John C. Van Dyke, George deF. Brush, Albert G. Beveridge, Royal Cortissoz, Henry K. Hadley, Charles D. Hazen. Willard L. Metcalf.