4 The Period to 1850 



commerce, trades, manufactures, and a natural history of the country . . ." 

 Under this constitution of Massachusetts the American Academy of Arts 

 and Sciences was incorporated in the same year ( 1780) . 



Thomas Jefferson, known primarily as the author of the Declaration of 

 Independence and secondarily as a president of the United States, founded 

 the University of Virginia and was an amateur scientist and a promoter of 

 science. When he went to Philadelphia in 1797 to be inaugurated as Vice 

 President of the United States he took with him a collection of fossil bones 

 of a large mammal and the manuscript of a memoir on them to be read be- 

 fore the American Philosophical Society, of which he had been elected 

 president the preceding year. He was also president of the American Phi- 

 losophical Society during his term of office as President of the United States 

 (1801-1809). He once wrote, "Nature intended me for the tranquil pursuit 

 of sciences by rendering them my supreme delight." The plans of the build- 

 ings for the University of Virginia and the scientific equipment Jefferson 

 designed and installed in lovely Monticello, his home looking down upon 

 Charlottesville, attest the sincerity of these sentiments. 



Attempts at Founding National Scientific Societies 



In 1816 an ambitious organization was launched under the name of the 

 Columbian Institute for the Promotion of Arts and Sciences for many and 

 diverse purposes, including the introduction and distribution of plants, in- 

 vestigations of plant, mineral and other resources, promotion of agriculture 

 and foreign trade, the production of a topographical and statistical survey 

 of the different natural divisions of the country, the founding of a national 

 museum and library, etc. Among its officers and members were such men 

 as John Quincy Adams, John C. Calhoun, Daniel Webster, Henry Clay and 

 Edward Everett. Meetings were held twice a year for several years, but 

 with the passing of its original moving spirits the society became moribund 

 after 1825 and eventually passed into the National Institution for the Pro- 

 motion of Science, which was organized and incorporated by an Act of 

 Congress in 1840. This latter society held monthly meetings and issued a 

 volume of Proceedings in three bulletins between 1840 and 1845. 



In April, 1844, the National Institution for the Promotion of Science 

 held in Washington a great congress of scientists to which were invited the 

 members of the American Philosophical Society and of all other learned 

 societies, and eminent citizens throughout the United States. The opening 

 address was by John Tyler, President of the United States. The principal 

 address was by Senator Robert J. Walker, of Mississippi. Ex-President 

 |ohn Quincy Adams, then Member of Congress from Massachusetts, Sen- 

 ator Woodbury of New Hampshire, the Hon. J. R. Ingersoll, of Pennsyl- 

 vania, and the Hon. John C. Spencer, Secretary of War, served as chairmen 



