PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 00 



went into a state of inactivity from which it did not arouse itself 

 until 1866. 



This sketch would not be complete without some reference 

 also to the history of scientific instruction in America during the 

 last century. . 



The first regular lectures upon a special natural history topic 

 appear to have been upon comparative anatomy. A course upon 

 this topic was delivered at Newpoi't, Rhode Island, in 1754, by 

 Dr. William Hunter, a native of Scotland, [b. about 1729], a 

 kinsman of the famous English anatomists, William and John 

 Hunter, and a pupil of Munro. His course upon comparative 

 anatomy was given in connection with others upon human anat- 

 omy and the history of anatomy, the first medical lectures in 

 America.* 



The first instruction in botany was given in Philadelphia in 

 1768 by Kuhn, who began in May of that year a course of lec- 

 tures upon that subject in connection with hijs professorship of 

 Materia Medica and Botany in the College of Philadelphia. 

 Adam Kuhn [b. in Germantown, Pa., 1741, d. 181 7] was edu- 

 cated in Europe, and had been a favorite pupil of Linnaeus. He 

 did not, however, continue his devotion to natural history, though 

 he became an eminent physician. William Bartram, son of John 

 Bartram, was elected to the same professorship in 1782. In 17S8 

 Prof. Waterhouse, of Harvard College, read lectures upon Natural 

 History to his medical classes, and is said to have subsequently 

 claimed that these were the first public lectures upon natural his- 

 tory given in the United States. This was doubtless an error, 

 for we find that in 1785 a course upon the philosophy of Chemis- 

 try and NaUnal History was delivered in Philadelphia. " People 

 of every description, men and women, flock to these lectures," 

 writes a contemporary. " They are held at the University three 

 evenings in a week."f 



* One of the original tickets to these courses is in the Library of the 

 Surgeon-General's office in Washington, 

 t Darlington, p. 535. 



