There were, as we have seen, fourteen founding members of The Symposium. The Constitution authorized a membership of 17, all of whom must be residents of Mercer County. On Thursday, October 19, 1905, a special meeting was held to hear a proposal for the admission of new members. Mr. William Clark, Col. Washington A. Roebling, John Campbell, Judge Alfred Reed and Governor Edward C. Stokes all were proposed for membership. It was noted that adding six new members would violate the constitutional limit on membership. However, in December, 1905 (at the club's 8th regular meeting), Col. Washington A. Roebling, President of John A. Roebling's Son's Co., became the first member added to the original founding fourteen.

In addition to Mr. Satterthwaite's presentation on "Divorce," during the first year of its existence, the members heard presentations on "The Negro Problem," "The Charity Problem," "Municipal Art," "The Relation of the State to Higher Education," "The Place of Religion in the State," "Samuel Taylor Coleridge - A Study," and "Romanism and American Institutions" - a heady dose of topics if there ever was one.

The first guest to attend a Symposium meeting, in January, 1905, was John W. Jordan, Librarian of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. He was the guest of Adam Strohm. And in February, 1906, the first non-member speaker at the Symposium was Lawson Purdy, Secretary of the New York Tax Reform Association, who spoke on "The Single Tax."

In April, 1906, two additional new members - William Cloke, a correspondent for the New York Herald and Edward C. Stokes, Former Governor of New Jersey - were approved for membership, bringing the total (temporarily) to the constitutionally authorized number of 17. However, in October of that year, the Rev. William Wishart was the first resignee from the Symposium, leaving for the new "call" in Grand Rapids, MI.

May, 1907 brought the first Annual Dinner Meeting, which was held at the Trenton Country Club. Thirteen members convened for dinner at 7:00 and, following dinner, heard a presentation by William Libbey, D.Sc., Professor of Physical Geography, Princeton University, on the topic "The Panama Canal." Libbey was admitted to membership in the Symposium the following year and was a long time member, serving as Vice President in 1911, President in 1912 and giving five more presentations to the group before his death in 1927. The Annual Dinner Meeting was held each year in May until the practice was discontinued in 1942.

Though the group continued to meet regularly at Frederick Clark's study, the November meeting in 1907 was held at the home of Col. Washington A. Roebling who was serving as Vice President and President-Elect at the time. Dinner was served at 7:30 PM prior to a discussion of "Minerals" led by Roebling and his associate S. H. Hamilton, and featured a tour of Roebling's extensive collection of common and semi-precious minerals.

The light supper served at the meeting of February, 2008 must have been particularly good. Following a statement that "The program consisted of a paper presented by the Reverend Hamilton Schuyler titled "Sunday Observance Considered Historically and Practically. It was followed by active discussion by the membership." the minutes then go on to include a rare, in fact unique, reference to the supper menu: "Adjourned for Diamond-Back Terrapin."

The May, 1908 Annual Dinner Meeting, held at the Trenton Country Club, attracted 14 members and 1 guest to hear a presentation on the topic "Our National Altruism" by William M. Lanning, LL.D., one of the founding members.

In order to encourage more guests to attend the Annual Dinner Meetings, in April 1909, Foster Griffith made a motion that each member be permitted to invite, on behalf of the Symposium, a guest for the Annual Dinner. The motion was seconded and carried following a brief discussion of the fact that this could be in violation of Article IV, Section 7 of the Constitution which limits the number of guests for each member to one per year. However, the net result was that at the next Annual Dinner Meeting, held the following month, the eleven members who attended brought with them 5 guests.

The meeting of October 1909 was held at the home of Dr. James M. Green on North Clinton Street. At that meeting William Libbey pointed out that while some members were faithful in fulfilling their obligation to present papers to the group, others were less so. He moved that a system of casting of lots be installed for deciding upon the member who should read a paper at any particular meeting or provide someone to take his place. The motion was lost. However, a motion was passed that the matter be referred back again to the Membership Committee. There is no evidence that any further action was taken on this matter, nor that the situation troubling Mr. Libbey changed in any way as a result, at least for the present time.

As further evidence that change was underway, at the meeting on December 13, 1909, "The Committee on Entertainment reported that the voice of the members had been sought as to the advisability of substituting a 7 o'clock dinner for a ten o'clock supper at the meetings of The Symposium; and recommended that the January meeting be held at the Bismarck, the dinner to be served at 7 o'clock and to be followed by the transaction of business and the reading of the paper for the evening.

"A motion was then carried that the report of the Committee be adopted and the Committee authorized to make arrangements for the dinner and meeting of the Symposium at the Bismarck, 25 East Hanover Street,, Monday evening, January tenth, 1910 at seven o'clock as suggested, for trial."

Apparently, the experiment met with some favor as, at the January meeting, "A motion was carried that the next dinner and meeting of The Symposium be held at the Bismarck, the hour of half after six being substituted for seven o'clock."

However, the change didn't stick. The February meeting was again held at the studios of Frederick Clark and continued there for two more months, until the meeting of April 11, 1910. In all, Mr. Clark (and his hard-working spouse and house staff) hosted a total of 39 meetings of the group.

At the meeting of April, 1910, "A motion was passed that the Secretary ask through proper channels permission to use The Old Barracks for future meetings of the Symposium and report at the next meeting." The following month, at the Annual Dinner Meeting held at the Trenton Country Club (14 members, 1 guest), "The Secretary read a communication to Dr. Green from The Old Barracks Association granting the use of such rooms to The Symposium for its meetings as The Symposium may consider most comfortable for its needs, the price for same to be three dollars a night." Beginning in October, 1910 and continuing until April, 1916, forty-two meetings of the Symposium were held at the Old Barracks. In addition to the $3 a month fee, each Christmas the club sent flowers to the Barrack's secretary, a Mrs. H. M. Voorhees. The membership also reverted to the custom of meeting at 8:00 PM and having supper following the meeting.

At the very next meeting, in November, 1910, the first hint of budget problems appeared. "A motion was passed that the Treasurer be authorized to assess members one dollar and a half each to make up the deficit for the year 1910." This was not as insignificant as it sounds. It represented a 15% surcharge valued at about $30 in 2005 dollars.

In what appears to be a flurry of self-indulgence, at the February, 1911 meeting Woodrow Wilson was proposed for membership by Dr. Henry Collin Minton. The motion was seconded by William Libbey and referred to the Committee on Membership, but nothing ever came of it, presumably because Wilson was at the time busy governing the state of New Jersey and then, beginning in 1912, the United States.

In November, 1911, Adam Strohm, Librarian of the Trenton Free Public Library and a founding member of the organization resigned. Though never previously mentioned in the minutes, he was thanked on this occasion for "furnishing the members with a bibliography on each of the important questions discussed." Reflecting upon this, it becomes evident that the members were very serious about the educational importance of the discussions held at the meetings of the organization. Imagine the work involved, to say nothing of the value to the membership, of preparing a bibliography for each of the 52 meetings involved.

At that same meeting, in response to the discovery that there were actually 19 members of The Symposium (even though the Constitution authorized only 17), "A motion by Mr. Schuyler was seconded and passed that The Symposium may invite four visitors to be selected by the Membership Committee (residents of Mercer County) to attend the meetings and share the obligations and privileges of the Club." This category of membership, never authorized in the Constitution, became the "permanent guest" category which is discussed later in this narrative.

Just over a year later, at the meeting of November 11, 1912, "The Secretary read Major Evan Johnson, Jr.'s resignation from membership. A motion was passed that the resignation be accepted with regret and that Major Johnson continue to enjoy the privileges without the obligations of the club." This was the precursor to the category of Honorary Membership, not actually created until May, 1959 - except he'd been a member for less than a year and the future requirement would be for at least 10 years of active membership (though, to his credit, he had made two presentations to the group during that year.)

At the meeting of December 9, 1912, a constitutional amendment was adopted. Article II - Name and Membership, Section 1. were amended to raise the number of authorized members from 17 to 21 and Article VII - Rules and Amendments, Section 2. that had previously read:

The meeting of March 19, 1913 is notable for the fact that it was the first meeting since the founding of the organization at which Frederick C. Clark was not present. He was confined to his home with a cold. He had attended 67 consecutive meetings over a period of 8 years and 3 months.

For the entire history of The Symposium, the problem of low attendance at meetings has rankled the membership. Over its first 10 years, the attendance record was as follows:

At the meeting which took place in April of 1914, there began a flurry of activity aimed at creating a "ten-year book to be ready for distribution to the members at our tenth annual meeting in December 1914." Rev. Hamilton Schuyler suggested that a committee of three be appointed to look into this matter. The President, William A. Clark, appointed Rev Schuyler, Judge Frederick W. Gnichtel and Henry Collin Minton to the committee.

The following month, the committee reported that a forty page book could be published for forty dollars for fifty copies. A motion was passed to continue the committee, and at its discretion to carry the work to its completion. Another motion was passed that the Secretary be added to the committee." Finally at the meeting in December, 1914 (when the book originally was to have been distributed), "The Committee on the Ten Year Book, through its chairman, Rev. Schuyler, presented the following report which by vote was unanimously adopted:

"The Committee appointed by the Symposium to prepare and cause to be printed the Decennial Book begs to submit the following recommendations:

(1) That an assessment of two dollars (about $35 today) each be levied upon members to pay the cost of production ($40.00).
(2) That each member be entitled to receive one copy of the book.
(3) That a copy be send to every former member and to the families of deceased members.
(4) That one copy be deposited for preservation with the Free Public Library and one with the State Library.
(5) That two copies be bound and retained by the Secretary in the archives of the Symposium.
(6) That the remaining copies be left in the custody of the Secretary at the option of purchase at $2.00 apiece by new members."

However well laid these plans were, the book was apparently never written or published. No record of it appears in any subsequent minute and no copy has ever been found.

At the May Annual Dinner Meeting of 1914, Linton Satterthwaite read a paper entitled, "Our Obsolescent Representative System" which, according to the minutes, was acclaimed with "a rising vote of thanks." This is the first time that the minutes mention any acclaim for the speaker or the topic, so one must conclude that either the Secretary, Mr. Clark, or the membership in attendance, were unusually impressed with the presentation.

It would seem that an equally impressive presentation took place at the meeting of October 12th of the same year. Rev. Henry Collin Minton read a paper entitled "the War in Europe" which, according to the minutes, "created so much interest on the part of those present that the discussion continuing until nearly midnight at which time the Club adjourned for supper."

During the first ten years of its existence, the membership of The Symposium grew from the original fourteen founding members to a total of twenty-one. Of the founding members, only seven remained active. Three had died: Hugh H. Hamill (1909), William M. Lanning (1911) and Garret D. W. Vroom (1914) and four had resigned: Henry McBride and Alfred W. Wishert (1906), Neil Robert Montgomery (1910), and Adam Strohm (1911). They were replaced, and the membership augmented, by the approval for membership of men of equal importance and stature in the community. Among them were:

The presentations ranged over a wide scope of topics. The table on the next page presents a summary of the subject matter covered:

An inspection of the list of club officers during the first decade presents a rather puzzling pattern. Seven of the ten men occupying the office of president during the period were founding members (Vroom, Griffith, Schuyler, Green, Satterthwaite, Minton, and William Clark). The other three incumbents (Roebling, Libbey and Stokes) were not among the founding group. Only seven of the men elected to the presidency also served as vice president and only three of them (Roebling, Libbey and Stokes) moved directly from the office of Vice President to that of President. James Green was the first Vice President (1904-05) but was not elected to the Presidency until 1909. Satterthwaite was Vice President in 1908 and President in 1912. Henry Collin Minton held the office of Vice President in 1906 but was not elected President until 1911. From this distance in time, it is difficult to understand the dynamic underlying these observations. One constant throughout the decade, however, was the incumbency of Frederick C. Clark as Secretary-Treasurer (and it is a pleasure to read the minutes written in his flowing cursive style).