In 1899 several Columbia physicists, including myself, and their friends from Johns Hopkins, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Cornell, Clark, and other places, met at Columbia and organized the American Physical Society. The late Professor Rowland, of Johns Hopkins, was elected its president, and one of its most distinguished members was Professor Ernest Rutherford, of McGill University, Montreal. He is now Sir Ernest Rutherford, the Cavendish professor of physics at the University of Cambridge, occupying the professorial chair once occupied by Maxwell, then by Rayleigh, and then by Thomson, now Sir John Joseph Thomson, master of Trinity College, Cambridge. Their names I have mentioned often in the course of this narrative. It was most unfortunate for the progress of American physics that because of his failing health Rowland’s wonderful influence in the society was of short duration. He died in April, 1901, while still a young man. Rutherford’s wonderful discoveries in radioactivity were reported regularly by himself at the meetings of the society, and I often thought that these reports alone, even without the many other good things which came along, amply justified the existence of the society. When I compare the American Physical Society of twenty years ago with the American Physical Society of to-day I can scarcely believe that so much progress has been possible in so short a time. I recognize, however, that this remarkable growth is clue not only to the energy of youth of this country but also to the energy of youth of New Physics, which I call Electron Physics.