1865-67.] XATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 157 



standing his acceptance of various positions and offices 

 in America. He felt indignant at the action of England 

 and France in recognizing the Southern Confederacy, 

 and did his best to open the eyes of certain European 

 officials in this country to the right side of the question 

 and the final results. 



In March, 1863, during a session of the Board of 

 Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, he joined Pro- 

 fessor Bache in his scheme for the foundation of a 

 National Academy of Science. Bache was a rather 

 ambitious man, full of academic distinctions, and a 

 lover of power. In 1860 Agassiz had him elected 

 a corresponding member of the Academy of Science of 

 the Institute of France, and from that moment Bache 

 worked at the creation of a National Academy, to bear 

 some analogy to the French one. Under the pretext 

 that the government in Washington might be in want 

 of advice, directions, and reports on scientific subjects, 

 Bache, supported by Agassiz and Joseph Henry, ob- 

 tained, through Henry Wilson, then Vice-President 

 of the United States, an act by the Thirty-seventh 

 Congress " to incorporate the National Academy of 

 Science." 



Agassiz, who knew the defects of close corporations 

 with government privileges, like the Institute of France, 

 hesitated in following Bache, as did Joseph Henry. 

 But both had been in such intimate relationship with 

 Bache, and the American Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science, founded in 1848, had given such scanty 

 results, notwithstanding the influence exerted on the 

 committee by Professor Bache and his friends, that 



