416 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



sought to revive the plan of Leibnitz, but although courteously 

 received nothing came from his efforts. He wanted to be a professor 

 in the university and president of the academy, but the fact that he was 

 a protestant undoubtedly stood in his way. Still others than he were 

 interested in the establishment of an academy. A plan presented by 

 Baron von Petrasch in 1746 at the request of Count Haugnitz was laid 

 before the government in 1750 and carefully considered. Under the 

 terms science and the fine arts it proposed to cover the whole field of 

 knowledge. Nothing came of this effort nor of another put forth in 

 1774, perhaps because the government feared the influence of the union 

 of men so prominent for learning and ability, and perhaps because 

 it did not see whence the means for its support were to come. The 

 project for an Academy was not taken up again in earnest till 1837, 

 when twelve men met in Vienna to talk the matter over. They recog- 

 nized and emphasized the fact that in most of the large cities on the 

 continent academies had been founded not only to the benefit of their 

 members but to the credit of the cities in which they had their seat. 

 Patriotism, they insisted, required the union of the scholarship of 

 Vienna in an academy as a channel of communication with the learned 

 world. As all who met to discuss the formation of an academy were of 

 one mind as to its necessity, they formulated a plan of work, suggested 

 means for its support and signed a petition to the government for its 

 immediate organization. A small stamp tax on certain articles and the 

 right of the academy to publish a calendar would, they thought, produce 

 the necessary funds. The petition was seriously discussed. Men high 

 in office, of noble birth and near the emperor were in favor of granting 

 the request. The plan now presented was compared with that drawn 

 up in 1750. Public sentiment as represented by the learned class was 

 tested. The professors in the university were asked for their opinion. 

 Some thought there were already too many institutions in the city and 

 that there was neither room nor place for another. The medical 

 faculty as a whole was not in favor of an academy. Some thought its 

 work could not fail to come into conflict with that of the university. 

 But the dean of the faculty of arts, Professor J. J. von Luttrow, wrote 

 that the two could not come into conflict, that a university is a place 

 for imparting knowledge already acquired and tested, while an academy 

 seeks to increase knowledge by investigations and discoveries and fur- 

 nishes a place where scientific men may compare their theories, criticize 

 them and weigh carefully and judicially the evidence upon which they 

 have been formed. For years the discussions about the forming of an 

 academy continued. The matter was referred, in May, 1838, to a 

 special commission formed by the court. This commission reported 

 favorably in June of the following year. Nothing however was really 

 done till 1847, although several commissions had meanwhile been 



