166 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



more than interj^ret to their pupils so much of the wisdom of the past, 

 and of contemporary science, as may suffice for the immediate wants 

 of the country, and will have but scanty leisure for original investiga- 

 tion in the field of knowledge. There are, however, never wanting 

 earnest and curious minds who feel an almost irresistible impulse to 

 labor in this field, to enlarge the bounds of thought, and to grapple 

 with the great problems of man and nature. To foster this spirit, to 

 encourage its beginnings, and to extend the influence of its example, 

 should be the aim of wise statesmen and legislators who seek to ele- 

 vate their kind and ennoble their nation ; knowing that the brightest 

 glories and the most enduring honors of a country are those which 

 come from its thinkers and its scholars. 



The world's intellectual workers are, from the very nature of their 

 lives of thought and study, separated in some degree from the mass 

 of mankind. They feel, however, not less than others, the need of hu- 

 man sympathy and co-operation, and out of this need have grown 

 academies and learned societies devoted to the cultivation of letters 

 and of science. The records of these bodies in Florence, in Rome, in 

 Paris, in London, and elsewhere, are the records of scientific progress 

 for the last three centuries. Such bodies do not create thinkers and 

 workers, but they give to them a scientific home, a center of influence, 

 and the means of making known to the world the results of their 

 labors. 



It was with a wise forethought that more than a century since 

 Franklin and his friends founded at Philadelphia the American Philo- 

 sophical Society. Its planting then seemed premature, but its vigor- 

 ous growth during a century has served to show that the seed was not 

 too early sown. This, however, unlike many of the academies of the 

 Old World to which we have adverted, had no formal recognition from 

 the State, and there came a period in the growth of the American 

 Union when the need of an official scientific body was felt. Thus it 

 was that nineteen years ago, in the midst of the great civil war, the 

 American Congress authorized the erection of a National Academy of 

 Sciences, to which, as an American citizen, I have the honor to belong. 

 The aim proposed in founding this Academy was to gather together 

 what was best and highest in the scientific life of the nation, and, 

 moreover, to organize a body of councilors to which the executive au- 

 thority could always look for advice and direction in scientific matters 

 relating to the interests of the State. In this National Academy at 

 first consisting of fifty, and now practically limited to one hundred 

 members (a number which it has not yet attained) the domain of let- 

 ters is unrepresented ; while the Royal Society of London is, in like 

 manner although scholars and statesmen seek the honors of its fel- 

 lowship essentially an Academy of Sciences. 



Our infant organization attempts a larger plan, and embraces, with 

 the mathematical and physical sciences, letters, philosophy, and his- 



