458 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [1895- 



Board from 1867 to 1878 and during 1890, 1891 and 1892, the 

 history of the inactive intermediate years having heen left by him 

 fully recorded in manuscript. In support of this enterprise he 

 published in 1871 an address on the claims of the Academy to public- 

 favor, in the Penn Monthly for November 1873 an article on the 

 value of original scientific research and, on the occasion of the 

 removal of the Academy to the new building, a report to the contri- 

 butors on the condition of the society at that time, together with 

 numerous replies, statements and appeals in the newspapers. The 

 buildings of the Academy are, in truth, whether regarded as 

 meritorious or faulty, the visible evidence of Dr. Ruschenberger's 

 zeal, industry and perseverance and the memorial, if one were to be 

 assigned him, most consonant with his tastes and desires. 



He was elected one of the Vice-Presidents of the Academy in 

 January, 1869, to fill the position rendered vacant by the death of 

 John Cassin. At the annual meeting of the same year he was 

 elected to the highest position in the gift of the society which he held 

 until 1881 when, having declined a renomination, he was succeeded 

 in the Presidency by Dr. Joseph Leidy. 



From 1876 until the close of his service as President, Dr. Rusch- 

 enberger presented a series of reports at the annual meetings of the 

 Academy reviewing the work of the society. In the first report thus 

 presented he defines his attitude towards the department of instruction, 

 provision for which had been incorporated in the new code of by-laws 

 just then adopted. He gives emphatic endorsement to the idea of 

 providing support by endowment of positious for original investigators, 

 but deprecates the conferring of empty titles and points out the dis- 

 advantage of entrusting the control of departments of the museum to 

 those over whom, in the absence of compensation, there is no easily 

 administered method of control. He held that the Academy's 

 function was the encouragement of original research, its legitimate 

 work beginning where that of the University ceases, and that the 

 teaching of science could better be done by organizations having 

 instruction for their primary object. • His active co-operation was not, 

 however, interfered with when the opposite opinion was practically 

 sustained by the majority of his associates. While, therefore, he 

 was never in sympathy with the department of instruction, he acted 

 on the belief, as expressed by him to one of his Vice-Presidents about 

 this time, "that the institution will live and prosper long after we are 



