PROMOTION OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 7 



ganization of the Government and elsewhere, and for its hearty and 

 unselfish efforts to carry them out. Though no longer organized at 

 that time, an invitation for its members to join the National Institu- 

 tion and to transfer its museum and other property was received 

 and accepted in 1841. 



Like the National Institution, the Columbian Institute owed its 

 establishment and early successes to a masterful mind, the author 

 of its plans, who gave the best of his efforts to impress the impor- 

 tance of its objects and the advantages to be gained from such an 

 organization. It is to Dr. Edward Cutbush, then a surgeon in the 

 Navy, and the first president of the society, that these remarks 

 apply, though acknowledgments are also clue to Thomas Law for 

 the suggestion of such a society at the seat of government. As with 

 Poinsett, Dr. Cutbush finally reached a state of discouragement, 

 but, though leaving Washington in 1826, he never lost sight of the 

 promise of the work he had started. 1 



Recurring again to Dr. Goode's " Genesis of the United States Na- 

 tional Museum," the following extract, relating to a letter from Dr. 

 Cutbush, dated Geneva, N. Y., January 20, 1842, accepting election to 



'Dr. Goode, in "The Genesis of the United States National Museum," has 

 given interesting biographical sketches of these two notable men, from which 

 the following is abstracted. 



Edward Cutbush and his brother James, natives of Pennsylvania, were 

 among the most active of the popular teachers and promoters of science and 

 education at the beginning of the last century. Both were physicians, both 

 teachers of chemistry, both enthusiastic in the work of founding schools and 

 learned societies. Edward graduated from the medical department of the Uni- 

 versity of Pennsylvania in 1794, and became attached to the militia of Penn- 

 sylvania, first as hospital surgeon and subsequently as surgeon-general. On 

 June 24, 1799, he was appointed a surgeon in the United States Navy, in which 

 capacity he served until June 20, 1829, when he resigned. He was stationed 

 in Washington at the time of the founding of the Columbian Institute in 1816, 

 and apparently until 1826. Later he became a resident of Geneva, N. Y., and 

 participated in the establishment of the medical institute of Geneva College, 

 which was formally opened in 1835 and in which he became professor of chem- 

 istry. In 1842 he appears to have been still living in Geneva at an advanced 

 age. 



Thomas Law was a member of an English family of talent and influence. 

 He was born in England in 1756, and at the age of seventeen entered the service 

 of the British East India Company in Bengal. He was rapidly promoted, 

 occupied high positions, and was the author of important reform measures, until 

 1791, when failing health caused him to return to England. In 1793 he removed 

 to America and settled in Washington where he invested all his property in 

 houses and lots, and for forty years was one of its most zealous and enlightened 

 citizens. He was also one of the leaders in the intellectual life of the infant 

 Capital, and notwithstanding pronounced personal eccentricities was univer- 

 sally respected. He married, as his second wife, Miss Eliza Parke Custis, 

 granddaughter of Martha Washington. His death occurred in 1834. 



