The Secretary's efforts for the Association during the year have been chiefly concerned with increasing the membership. At the time. of the first annual meeting we numbered 379 members on an annual basis and twelve life members. About 300 more persons had sent in cards of application, but had not paid their dues. It was necessary to call on them to meet their obligation and also to seek new members by an active canvass. The spring campaign was followed by another this autumn. Counting the circulars now in the mails, about 3000 have been sent out to persons known to be interested in the teaching of Spanish. As a result exactly 696 members paid dues for the year 1918. About 100 more have joined us for 1919. With fifteen life members we now number more than 800. We ought to have at least one thousand members. Therefore let us inaugurate right here a Thousand-Member Drive. Let each active member make a pledge to secure one new member. Surely each one of us knows somebody who ought to join. The names of the new life members, not previously published, are Professor Frank Dean Tubbs, of Lewiston, Me., and Dr. Erwin W. Roessler, of the High School of Commerce, New York City. All our life members are men. I say this to call the attention of the ladies to the splendid opportunity that is knocking at the door. I often wonder who will be the first lady in the land to become a life member of the Association.1 To interest our members and to secure others we are planning two extra numbers of HISPANIA in addition to those called for by the constitution. With six numbers, published about the first of February, March, May, October, November, and December, HisPANIA will be almost a monthly during the scholastic year. Just how we can afford to do this with a membership of 800, you will see more clearly from the financial report.2 Receipts for the year: Balance December 29, 1917 $1042.40 1284.15 551.77 1 At the close of the business meeting Mrs. Charlotte Brewster Jordan seized the opportunity and joined the Association as a life member. 2 The Treasurer's accounts were audited in detail by a committee composed of J. J. Arnao and A. Easy, and reported correct. You note the big item in the receipts, $551.77 for advertising from HISPANIA. This is due to the indefatigable efforts of the advertising manager. In the name of you all I pay my respects to Dr. Roessler. To his efforts during the past year, and the coming year. our two extra numbers of HISPANIA will be due. But you must second his efforts by securing new members and by helping to keep all the old members. In closing, I call upon all to work in the Thousand-Member Drive. ALFRED COESTER, Secretary-Treasurer. REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON SEAL As chairman of the committee to select a design for an emblem for the Association to be used as a seal on official documents, I had the honor to submit the following to the Executive Council: "The seal of the Association shall consist of a shield bearing a chief azure, with one white star, above the lion of Leon, gules on a field argent, and the castle of Castile on a field gules. Over the shield shall be a scroll with the motto, 'Todos a una'; under the shield the date, 1917." The Executive Council did not altogether approve of this design. Hence it is necessary to appeal to the Association here in session to approve what has been done. Now, to explain the various parts of the design. The lion and the castle are self-explanatory and meet no objection from anybody. The star on the blue field is intended to typify America; not the United States, but America in its broadest sense. We need something to represent America, North, Central and South America, and the islands thereof. If we, as teachers of Spanish, have one unassailable argument in favor of the teaching of Spanish, it is that Spanish is the language of our neighbors on this continent, and therefore English and Spanish are the languages of the future. Does the star then typify America and the future? That the star symbolizes the future ever since the star of Bethlehem first rose above the horizon there can be little question. That a star may be used to typify America, consider that stars appear in the flags or coats-of-arms of the following eleven countries of America: the United States of North America, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Honduras, Panama, Salvador, Venezuela, Ecuador, Paraguay, Bolivia. Furthermore, the stars in the American flag are used to signify union. Union likewise is expressed by the motto, "Todos a una." The motto has also a certain historic value for our Association because it was used in the first circular sent out in May, 1917. The use to which the seal will be put ought also to be considered. Cut on a metal die, it will be used on documents. For that reason a relatively simple design is best. ALFRED COESTER, Chairman. THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS (Read at the Second Annual Meeting of the Association, New York, December 28, 1918.) I greet you with great pleasure at the end of our successful and prosperous first year as an Association. I welcome you to our Second Annual Meeting with a lively feeling of joy and satisfaction on seeing you here. As I look into your faces I see the light of comradeship and strong purpose that augurs exceedingly well for the future. It was not without some trepidation, but at the same time with considerable confidence in the wisdom of our collective judgment, that we launched our bark a year ago upon waters tossed by the storms of a world war. Even in the quiet scholastic cove where our modest little ship took to the water, the surgings and cross currents of the dolorous times made themselves felt to an uncomfortable degree. Could our little craft weather the storm? Could our crew sail her safely in the gale? The answer to these questions I read in your happy presence here today. We have survived. Our crew has increased. The log-book of our ship, HISPANIA, containing the record of our voyage, is an interesting narrative. We have safely anchored in port after our first annual voyage. War times were indeed inauspicious times in which to undertake the organization of our society. The world cried out for sterner things in America than a society of Spanish teachers. The sterner things were given in abundant measure by our country. And be it said at this time that many members of our society, some in khaki here and in France, many in highly important Government missions, both public and secret, here and abroad, some in hospitals, canteens, cantonments, or ambulance corps, have taken an active part in the all-important and serious work of war, now so magnificently won by the forces of right and justice. I could name you a most worthy and long list of our members who have been conspicuous in war service. And among our members has been evident the highest degree of loyalty to the noble, unselfish ideals of the Government of our beloved land. For the teachers of Spanish comprehend clearly that theirs is in essence a patriotic duty at all times. Besides offering themselves for participation in war service, they feel, I am sure, that in teaching Spanish well and effectively they are contributing much to the welfare of the country. They look into the future and see, as do all true American citizens, a greater United States of America. They have also the vision to see, I believe, a greater collective America, an America dedicated unitedly to the high ideals of freedom and democracy, an America stretching from our own land to the utmost bounds of Patagonia, Pan-America, a spiritual union of the English-, Spanish-, and Portuguese-speaking peoples of twenty independent republics. We look ahead and foresee a mutual understanding between all the Americas, a mutual appreciation of the work of each individual American nation and of the potentialities of each. This mutual understanding, already well begun, will grow and increase as never before. Suspicion that existed in Spanish America, of our nation, the most powerful in the group of New World peoples, has been, we believe, forever laid to rest by the disinterestedness and lofty sacrifice which that nation has shown in so unmistakable a manner in recent months. But upon us generally as citizens of the most powerful nation in the New World, and upon us particularly as teachers of the language of eighteen of our sister American republics, lie peculiarly heavy burdens of responsibility. It is we who must do much to interpret to our fellow-citizens the intrinsic worth and soundness of Spanish-American civilization, the debt of the world to Spanish civilization in the history of the past and present, the progress and the possibilities of progress among those who speak Spanish. And the basis of all this work is the teaching of the Spanish language. How much friction and suspicion might have been avoided in the past between our country and Spanish-speaking lands had there existed among our citizenry an understanding of the Spanish language and the points of view of those nations that speak that language! The attitude of superiority toward Spanish-American things and peoples so often assumed in the past by our business men, bankers, and even diplomats, is giving way to an attempt to understand those things and people. We needs must teach our youth, our future citizens, that the life and customs of Spanish peoples are |