FOUNDING OF THE ACADEMY 13 
the time when the idea of a national academy first began to 
take root, these needs had been more or less adequately met. 
Colleges had been established in most of the States of the Union 
and were in a prosperous condition, research had been prose- 
cuted in nearly every branch of science, and commerce and 
the development of the country had been encouraged by exten- 
sive surveys and other activities of the Government. The objects 
which the founders of the National Academy of Sciences had 
in view were of a somewhat different character. What they 
were can best be learned from those who were leaders in the 
movement. In the third section of the act of incorporation it is 
provided, that ‘““ The Academy shall, whenever called upon by 
any department of the Government, investigate, examine, ex- 
periment, and report upon any subject of science or art.” In 
the first report of the Academy to Congress, dated March 28, 
1864, Professor Bache, the first President, remarked: 
“The want of an institution by which the scientific strength of the country may 
be brought, from time to time, to the aid of the government in guiding action 
by the knowledge of scientific principles and experiments, has long been felt by the 
patriotic scientific men of the United States. No government of Europe has been 
willing to dispense with a body, under some name, capable of rendering such aid 
to the government, and in turn of illustrating the country by scientific discovery 
and by literary culture.” *° 
In the report for 1867, Joseph Henry, then President of the 
Academy, refers to the objects of the Academy in the following 
terms: 
“The objects of this association are principally to advance abstract science, and 
to examine, investigate, and experiment upon subjects on which information is 
desired by the government. 
“It was implied in the organization of such a body that it should be exclusively 
composed of men distinguished for original research, and that to be chosen one of 
its members would be considered a high honor, and consequently a stimulus to 
scientific labor, and that no one would be elected into it who had not earned the 
distinction by actual discoveries enlarging the field of human knowledge. 
“The names of the fifty original members were included in the act of organi- 
zation and were chosen from among those of the principal cultivators of science 
in this country. For the appointment of these members the academy itself is not 
” Rep. Nat. Acad. Sci. for 1863 (1864), p. 1. 
3 
