In the first year of its existence, Leonard Bloomfield asked and answered the question, ‘Why a Linguistic Society?’ When it was twenty-one years old, he was satisfied that the Society had ‘come of age’, and he enumerated some of the benefits that had accrued from its activity. Now, in its fiftieth year, we can say that it has achieved a comfortable maturity; but it is also faced with new problems and responsibilities. What in 1945 was still a modest young society has shown extraordinary growth, beyond anything that could have been dreamed of in Bloomfceld's day. As we pause briefly to look back, are we justified in thinking that the Society has fulfilled the hopes of its founders ? Can we draw on the experiences of these years in charting our course into the future?