1 86 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ing, which are doing good work in their locality. But distances are 

 so great that it is difficult to collect men together at any one point. 

 The American Association, which we are now attending, is not a sci- 

 entific academy, and does not profess to be more than a gathering of 

 all who are interested in science, to read papers and enjoy social inter- 

 course. The National Academy of Sciences contains eminent men 

 from the whole country, hut then it is only for the purpose of advising 

 the government freely on scientific matters. It has no building, it 

 has no library; and it publishes nothing except the information which 

 it freely gives to the government, which does nothing for it in return. 

 It has not had much effect directly on American science; but the 

 liberality of the government in the way of scientific expeditions, publi- 

 cations, etc., is at least partly due to its influence, and in this way it 

 has done much good. But it in no way takes the place of the great 

 Eoyal Society, or the great academies of science at Paris, Berlin, 

 Vienna, St. Petersburg, Munich, and, indeed, all the European capi- 

 tals and large cities. These, by their publications, give to the young 

 student, as well as the more advanced physicist, models of all that is 

 considered excellent; and to become a member is one of the highest 

 honors to which he can aspire, while to write a memoir which the 

 academy considers worthy to be published in its transactions excites 

 each one to his highest effort. 



The American Academy of Sciences in Boston is perhaps our near- 

 est representation of this class of academies, but its limitation of mem- 

 bership to the State deprives it of its national character. 



But there is another matter which influences the gi'owth of our 

 science. 



As it is necessary for us still to look abroad for our highest inspira- 

 tion in pure science, and as science is not an affair of one town or one 

 country, but of the whole world, it becomes us all to read the current 

 journals of science and the great transactions of foreign societies, as 

 well as those of our own countries. These great transactions and 

 journals should be in the library of every institution of learning in the 

 country, where science is taught. IIow can teachers and professors 

 be expected to know what has been discovered in the past, or is being 

 discovered now, if these are not provided? Has any institution a right 

 to mentally starve the teachers whom it employs, or the students 

 who come to it? There can be but one answer to this; and an institution 

 calling itself a university, and not having the current scientific jour- 

 nals upon its table or the transactions of societies upon its library 

 shelves, is certainly not doing its best to cultivate all that is best in 

 this world. 



We call this a free country, and yet it is the only one where there 

 is a direct tax upon the pursuit of science. The low state of pure 



