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As many of you may know based on my previous posts, I enjoy reading the old philatelic journals that one can browse on-line through Google's book search. I recently came across this quote from the APS Annual Meeting of 1915 that I felt bears repeating, as it seems to me it is as relevant today as it was in 1915 (although in 2010 web sites such as SCF certainly help the cause!):
"I fear that the literary side of our pursuit has escaped the attention of the majority of our members. We are so intent on pursuing the elusive stamp itself, that when we have got it or have not got it, as the case may be, we stop. We do not take the time to put down our impressions on paper for the benefit of those who are coming after us. You must remember, gentlemen, that this institution must be perpetuated in the next generation if it is going to survive, and in order to do that there must be a literature of our pastime or science, or whatever name you may choose to term it, and it is just as much your duty to produce literature for the benefit of the coming generation, as it is to accumulate collections of postage stamps to be handed over to them. The very fact that they are already accumulated and handed over in block lots defeats the purpose for which stamp collections are made, that is, to inculcate the study of history, both physical, and particularly the political history of the world for the last seventy years. There is nothing better to my mind at the present time extant than the collection of stamps for the purpose of implanting a knowledge of political history in the rising generation, and I hope that you will take it to heart, and produce some literary matter for the support of this journal and all other journals that are interested in the collection of stamps."
--The American Philatelist (August 1915)
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Posted 10/20/2010 10:45 am
