CHAPTER Til 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF THE INCORPORATORS 
r AHE tumultuous days of a great war would hardly seem 
a propitious time for the formation of an association to 
promote the arts of peace. Men of science, like men 
from every other department of life, were engaged directly or 
indirectly in the struggle, and it seems unlikely that any of them, 
and especially those in prominent positions, would find the 
leisure, or be in a mood, to consider the qualifications of their 
confréres for membership in an academy. The peculiar circum- 
stances of the time must have greatly increased the difficulties 
of this delicate task. It has been suggested that the exigencies 
of the day account for the large number of men connected with 
the military and naval branches of the Government that were 
included among the incorporators. ‘This may be true, as the 
founders of the Academy undoubtedly had the idea that it would 
be a help to the Government, but a more just view is, perhaps, 
that so many men of high scientific attainments were connected 
with the Army and Navy that the choice naturally lay in that 
direction. 
It would be interesting to know how the selection of incor- 
porators was guided, but no records at present available reveal 
the facts. A clew is, perhaps, to be found by a study of the mem- 
bership of scientific organizations already in existence when the 
Academy was founded. There were three general societies, the 
American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of 
Arts and Sciences, and the American Association for the Ad- 
vancement of Science. From a comparison of the lists of those 
who were members between 1860 and 1863', it appears that from 
two-thirds to nearly three-fourths of the incorporators of the 
*The meetings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science were sus- 
pended during the Civil War. 
103 
