The Science and Art Club of Germantown has endured from 1880 until now based on this very simple format: Club members take turns organizing an evening’s “intellectual entertainment,” as the club rules have it, for each other. Members either give a talk themselves or have an outside speaker address the group or, occasionally, arrange a musical or similar program. The purpose is “to promote intellectual culture in the departments of Science, Art and Literature,” but with the proviso that “no theological subjects or partisan politics shall be allowed.”
The Club meets seven times a year normally on the fourth Monday of the month from October to May, except in December. This means that each couple or individual member presents a program about every five or six years. The Science and Art Club owns no clubhouse. “We are a wandering club,” noted Edward I. H. Howell in 1890, on the occasion of the Club’s 10th anniversary, “with no fixed home or property.” Thus, when it is a member’s turn to organize an evening’s program, he or she also arranges for a site and pays for any related costs. The Club has no other regular yearly dues.
A Social Hour follows each presentation, and the host and hostess for the evening also provide simple refreshments. This Social Hour is no less important than the presentation. “The members…mingle freely together,” wrote William Woods in 1950, and “thus we have the opportunity to become more intimately acquainted…Warm and enduring friendships are thus frequently formed and add to the enthusiasm with which members look forward to meetings.” This is as true today as when these words were written.
Members of the Science and Art Club have three obligations: to present a program from time to time; to attend regularly; and to reply to the hosts’ invitations.
Existing members may propose new entrants by submitting their names and a short biography to the President or Membership Secretary.