National Scioilific and Juiucalional /nsii/it/ions. 



313 



The sjsteiu ol" luitional scientific organizations thus inaugurated is 

 still expanding. Within the past few years there have sprung into 

 existence a consideraljle number of learned societies devoted to special 

 subjects, usually with luilocalized membership, and holding meetings 

 from year to year in different cities. Among these are those named 

 below : 



The American Anatoinical vSociety. 



The American Dialect Societ}'. 



The American Folk-lore Society. 



The American Geographical Society (of 

 New York) and the National (jeo- 

 graphic Society (of Washington). 



The American Crcological Society. 



The American Historical Association. 



The American Institnte of INIining Kn- 

 gineers. 



The American Meteorological Society. 



The American Metrological Society. 



The American Oriental vSociety. 



The American Ornithologi.sts' ITnion. 



The American Philological Association. 



The American Thysiological Society. 



The American vSociety of Naturalists. 



The American Societ)^ for Psychical Re- 

 search. 



The Archseological Institute of America. 



The Botanical Chib of the American 

 Association. 



The Franklin Institute. 



That the organization of such societies has been so long delayed was 

 perhaps due to the fact that during the first six decades of the century 

 the number of scientific investigators was comparatively small, and 

 .scientific work of original character was confined to a few of the large 

 cities, .so that local organizations, supplemented by the annual sununer 

 meetings of the American As.sociation for the Advancement of Science, 

 answered all needs. Since the clo.se of the civil war, and of the period 

 of ten years which elapsed before our country was restored to commercial 

 pro.sperity, and indeed before it had begun to fully feel the effects of the 

 great scientific renai.s.sance which originated in 1859 with the publication 

 of Darwin's Origin of vSpecies, there has been a great increase in the 

 number of pensons whose time is chiefly devoted to original .scientific 

 work. 



Nothing has contril)nted so materially to this state of affairs as the 

 passage by Congress in 1H62 of the bill, introduced by the Hon. Justin 

 vS. Morrill, of Vermont, to establish .scientific and indttstrial educational 

 institutions in every State, supplemented in 1887 by the Hatch bill for 

 the founding of the agricultural experiment .stations. ' The movement 

 was at first unpopular among American educators, but after a quarter of 



ning of the century were engaged in correspondence "about learned societies, 

 universities, and public iustructiori. ' ' John Adams in a letter to Cutler, dated Quincy , 

 May I, 1S02, referred to a .scheme for the establishment of a national academy of 

 arts and .sciences, in which Mitchill, of New York, was interested, and which was to 

 come tip for di.scussion at a meeting in that city in the following month. (L,ife of 

 Mana.sseh Cutler, II, p. 87. ) 



'vSee Appendix D, and also A. C. True's A Brief Account of the Kxperiment 

 Station Movement in the United vStates, United vStates Department of Agriculture, 

 Experiment Station Bulletin No. i, 1SS9, pp. 73-78. 



