(From The Mensa Journal, issue #151, November, 1971, on the past and future of Mensa at the time of its Silver Jubilee.)

(The article summarizes Mensa's origins and history, citing landmark documents along the way.)

...Where do we go from here?  We are established as a social organization.  If our international and national organizations crumbled tomorrow, there would still be groups of people throughout the world who would continue to meet together in the same Mensa atmosphere; Mensa in that sense would not die.  But many of us now feel that this Jubilee should mark a turning point, a new beginning; that we should embark upon some definite course of action ultimately to the benefit of mankind.  What should these courses be?  As yet there are in the main only hazy ideas, apart from the Villaggio del Superdotato--and even the Villaggio requires the expenditure of much more of Mensa members' time, energy, enthusiasm, and (above all) money if it is long to continue, let alone flourish.

Our only internal concern should be to broaden the basis of our membership, so that we may become the society that our Founders originally envisaged:  a group of people from all walks of life, with high intelligence as their only common bond.

Some members feel that we should "sell" ourselves more thoroughly as a research tool, instead of conducting what they feel are trivial surveys often on a sample too small or biased to be of use to any outside body.  Could we, by this means or some other, play a greater part in shaping public opinion, or have more influence on the course of events in the world around us?  What can we offer toward solution of any of the major problems facing the world today?  All these ideas involve one common action:  that we turn our attention to the world around us and cease the introspection that has bedevilled us for most of the past twenty-five years (yes, it is there in the earliest Mensa publications).  What one prominent member described as "pulling up the plant every so often to see how the roots are growing" must surely cease before we can make any worthwhile contributions beyond the confines or our membership circle.  Our only internal concern should be to broaden the basis of our membership, so that we may become the society that our Founders originally envisaged:  a group of people from all walks of life, with high intelligence as their only common bond.  After that, we must forget all our preoccupation with intelligence per se, with internal organization, with "correct" committee procedure, with constant discussion--and no more than discussion--of ideas, attitudes, and prejudices.  We must turn our gaze out toward the world around us.  That way lies our future, our next twenty-five years.
 

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