National SciciUific and Ediicalioiial Institutions. 2'] J 



In intimate connection with his plan for a nniversity was that of 

 Washint^ton for a niihtarj' academy at West Point. He had found dur- 

 ing the Revohition a great want of engineers, and this want caused 

 Congress to accept the services of numerous French engineers to aid our 

 country in its struggle for independence. 



At the close of the Revolution, Washington lost no time in commend- 

 ing to Virginia the impro\'ement of the Potomac and James rivers, the 

 junction by canal of Chesapeake Bay and Albemarle Sound of North 

 Carolina. He soon after proceeded to New York to see the plans of 

 General Schuyler to unite the Mohawk with the w^atersof Lake Ontario, 

 and to Massachusetts to see the plans of the Merrimac Navigation 

 Company. 



It was the want of educated engineers for work of this kind that 

 induced Generals Washington, L,ee, and Huntington and Colonel Pick- 

 ering, in the year 1783, to select West Point as a suitable site for a mili- 

 tarj^ academy, and at that place such an institution was essayed, under 

 the law of Congress, in 1 794. But from the destruction of the build- 

 ing and its contained books and apparatus by fire, the academy was sus- 

 pended until the year 1801, when Mr. Jefferson renewed the action of 

 the law, and the following year, 1802, a United States Corps of Engi- 

 neers and Military Academy was organized by law and established at 

 West Point-, with General Jonathan Williams, the nephew of Franklin 

 and one of the vice-presidents of the Philosophical Society, at its head, 

 and the United States Military Philosophical Societ)^ was established 

 with the whole Engineer Corps of the Army for a nucleus. 



This society had for its object "the collecting and disseminating of 

 militar}- science." Its membership during the ten years of its existence 

 included most of the leading men in the country, civilians as well as 

 officers in the Army and Navy. Meetings were held in New York and 

 Washington, as well as in West Point, and it seems to have been the 

 first national scientific society.' 



The Patent Office also began under Wa.shington, the first American 

 patent system having been founded by act of Congress April 10, 1790. 



On the 8th of January, 1790, President Washington entered the Sen- 

 ate Chamber, where both Houses of Congress were assembled, and 

 addressed them on the state of the new nation. In the speech of a few 

 minutes, which thus constituted the first annual message to Congress, 



'At least three fascicles of Extracts from the minutes of the United States Mili- 

 tary Societ)' were printed— one for the stated meeting, October 6, 1806 [4°, 14 pp.]; 

 one for an occasional meeting at Washington, January 30, 1808 [4°, pp. 1-23 (i)]; 

 and one for an occasional meeting at New York, December 28, 1809 [4°, pp. 1-22]. 

 The manuscript records, in four volumes, are said to be in the possession of the 

 New York Historical Society. 



I am indebted to Colonel John M. Wilson, United States Army, Superintendent of 

 the Military Academy, and to General J. C. Kelton, United States Army, for court- 

 eous and valuable replies to my letters of inquiry. 



