. Address by Professor Brewer. xlvii 



All this now is changed, and the public understanding as to 

 what "learning" signifies is very different. The civil engineer, 

 designing and building great structures ; the mechanical engineer, 

 employing abstruse mathematics in economizing the energies used 

 in steam engines, electric motors, or water wheels ; the chemist, 

 conducting great metallurgical works or manufacturing commer- 

 cial products : each is recognized as belonging to a learned profes- 

 sion as truly as is the village lawyer, the parish clergyman, or the 

 country doctor. So, too, the societies of engineers, chemical and 

 other similar associations, are recognized as learned societies as 

 truly as those which are more especially devoted to history, litera- 

 ture, pure science, medicine, or philosophy. 



But no line of separation can be drawn between those societies 

 honored with the term "learned," organized for the promotion 

 of intellectual culture, and those designed purely for material or 

 economic objects. Nor does the precise name indicate the infel- 

 lectual status. Under various designations, — academies, societies, 

 associations, and clubs, they range through every grade. 



Very few of the existing academies and learned societies of 

 the world were founded before 1750. But between the middle and 

 the end of the eighteenth century, the great social and industrial 

 revolutions first allowed and then promoted the establishment of 

 many such organizations. Some of these, although relating more 

 particularly to the industries, may in a sense be classed as learned, 

 since the promotion of science for its practical use in the arts of 

 life can not be separated from its promotion for purely scientific 

 investigation or mental culture. 



In this country but two " learned societies" had been founded 

 prior to the establishment of the Connecticut Academy, and when 

 the last century closed these were too young to have had much 

 influence. Before our Revolutionary War, the American Philo- 

 sophical Society of Philadelphia was the only strictly learned 

 societv as then understood, but there were also a few local medi- 

 cal associations. 



Zoology and botany may be said to have been established by 

 Linnaeus about 1750 or a little later. Geology and chemistry 

 had their true beginning during the last quarter of the same 

 century. There were, of course, a science and a literature of 

 botany long before, as there was likewise a so-called science of 



