THE STORY OF AN ENTOMOLOGIST 



association, and I was one of the early presidents. Before our 

 first dinner I went through the Congressional Directory in order 

 to get an idea as to the number of men in Congress who were 

 college-bred. It was surprisingly small. If I am not mistaken, 

 there were not a dozen men in either house at that time who 

 had ever seen die inside of a college. But, of course, I remem- 

 bered that many of these men were fighting in the Civil War 

 during the years that some of them, at least, would have been 

 at college. I may state here incidentally that many years after- 

 wards—I think it was in 1913 or 1914— I went again over the 

 Congressional Directory with this point in mind and found that 

 then the proportion of college-bred men in Congress was very 

 much higher. The majority— a considerable majority— of the 

 men then serving had received some kind of college education, 

 and men from the principal universities of the country were very 

 much in evidence. 



It must have been about 1881, when the House of Representa- 

 tives was discussing the combining of the Wheeler and the 

 Hayden Surveys mto the United States Geological Survey, diat 

 E. C. Manners, a charming and sophisticated Columbia graduate, 

 who was private secretary to Clarence King (chief of the 

 Wheeler Survey), asked me to go to the Capitol with him one 

 night to listen to the debate. 



I recall only one incident, but it amused me greatly. A young- 

 ish member of Congress from Colorado (I have forgotten his 

 name) was discussing the bill in opposition. As I remember it, 

 he said substantially this: 



"Upon whose advice are we supposed to take this action? On 

 that of the so-called National Academy of Sciences ? What is this 

 National Academy? A scientific organization is usually judged 

 by the character of its publications. Now, what has this Academy 

 published? So far as Mr. Spoffard, the Librarian of Congress, 



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