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Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Allow me first of all to thank you for the honour you have done me in asking me to read the opening paper at this Annual Meeting of your learned Society. I take it as an honour done not so much to myself as to psycho-analysis. Seventeen years ago I had the privilege of visiting this country with Professor Freud, and so I am able to compare the position of psycho-analysis in 1909 with its position to-day both in America and in Europe. At that time, apart from the friendly interest shown by two great American scholars, Dr. Stanley Hall and Dr. J. J. Putnam, Freud's method was championed by only one single person in the United States—by Dr. A. A. Brill. And in Europe it was certainly not very much better. We were only a handful of pioneers scattered about the world—generals without an army; yet we were full of hope and optimism about our work. Our abounding hopefulness in those days reminds me of the old anecdote of the beggar who was dividing his property amongst his sons. To the first he said: 'You may beg in Germany'; to the second: 'You shall have Hungary', while to the third he apportioned Switzerland, and to the fourth, America. Since the time of my visit we have indeed advanced enormously in public recognition, and can boast of a whole host of adherents of psycho-analysis both in your country and in Europe. In America this host seems more numerous than in Europe; at any rate, I find a more wide-spread interest in psycho-analysis amongst people who