ACADEMY OF ARTS AND LETTERS, an American institution founded in 1898 the American Social Science Association. At its annual meeting that year the Association elected a select group of American authors and artists, who should constitute a National Institute of Arts and Letters. Membership was to be based on distinguished achievement in art, literature or music. At first the body was lim ited to a membership of 150, then increased to 250. This body then proceeded to organize an Academy of Arts and Letters, the members of which were to be recruited from the general membership of the Institute. The first seven members were elected in 1904: William Dean Howells, Augustus Saint Gaudens, Edmund Clarence Stedman, John La Farge Samuel J Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain), John Hay and Edward A. MacDowell. These were em powered to elect additional members, each new member being given a vote, until the whole body of 50 had been organized. The living members of the Academy in 1915 were: Wil liam Dean Howells, Henry James, Henry Ad ams, Theodore Roosevelt, John Singer Sar ent, Daniel Chester French, John Burroughs, James Ford Rhodes, Horatio William Parker, William Milligan Sloane, Robert Underwood Johnson, George Washington Cable, Andrew Dickson White, Henry Van Dyke, William Crary Brownell, Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve, Woodrow Wilson, Arthur Twining Hadley, Henry Cabot Lodge, Edwin Howland Blash field, Thomas Hastings, Brander Matthews, Thomas Nelson Page, Elihu Vedder, George Edward Woodberry, Kenyon Cox, George Whitefield Chadwick, Abbott Henderson Thay er, Henry Mills Alden, George deForest Brush, William Rutherford Mead, Bliss Perry, Ab bott Lawrence Lowell, Nicholas Murray But ler, Paul Wayland Bartlett, Owen Wister, Herbert Adams, Augustus Thomas, Timothy Cole, Cass Gilbert, William Roscoe Thayer, Robert Grant, Frederick MacMonnics, Julian Alden Weir, William Gillette and Paul Elmer More.