Book Description

Excerpt from Anniversary of the Berkeley Club, 1873-1909: Thursday Evening, February 18th, 1909; In Memoriam, Daniel Coit Gilman, LL. D., Born July 6, 1831, Died October 13, 1908 In passing, it may be a point of interest to state that the only trouble or serious approach to trouble that the Ber keley Club has ever experienced in all its history of thirty six years has been in connection with this question of caterage. The various expedients resorted to, and the various failures experienced therefrom, could they be adequately set forth, would form an interesting and some what educative chapter; good for incipient clubs to study. Suffice to say that at one time, when all other expedients seemed to have been resorted to, recourse was had to the plan of the members dining at home and gathering later for paper and discussion. The result scarcely needs re port. Five meetings saw our attendance decimated; five more would have seen it sublimated and the Berkeley Club gone up in smoke. We demonstrated to our hearts'content the fact that no association of a stated nature, however high its aims, and even though it may have been instituted as was ours for the consideration of high themes, - themes of greatest interest, literary, social, scientific, philosophic, as well as practical, - can without the adjunct of good table fare and good table talk be long kept alive. Heart and stomach were centuries ago diagnosed as being closely related to each other. Our experience seemed to develop the fact that the affinity between brain and stomach is quite as real and quite as intimate. But to come more closely to the heart of our purpose. As already stated, Dr. Gilman arrived in California and at the University in November, 1872. During the follow ing January he invited two or three individuals to his dinner table, for the discussion with him of the desir ability and practicability of a club, such as this has grown to be. On February sixth the same persons, together with four others, again met at President Gilman's table; and then and there an organization was agreed upon, and the name, Berkeley, suggested by Dr. J. A. Benton, was adopted. Several other members were elected at this meeting; who, with two a little later added, making seventeen in all, became the Club's charter members. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.