228 DAVENPORT ACADEMY OF NATUKAI, SCIENCES. 



more careful, pains-taking delineation of natural objects, to be used 

 heieafter as the means of illustrating scientific subjects. 



It is not in accordance with the design of this sketch to trace in 

 detail his school life, of which the writer in fact has no personal 

 knowledare, hence it will suffice here to sav, that his school life was 

 characterized by studious attention to the concrete subjects of in- 

 struction, a considerable indifference shown to the mere technicali- 

 ties or abstractions of grammar and languages, and a rapidly devel- 

 oped capacity for the neglected branches of natural science; thus 

 whatever had any direct or indirect bearing on such subjects secured 

 his attention far enough to master its practical details, and in ap- 

 plied mathematics, or the modern languages, opening up the broader 

 field of investigation by other minds, he progressed far enough to 

 use them as means to higher ends. 



In the spring of 1869, young Putnam, then in his fourteenth year, 

 and attending the grammar school, attracted the notice of Prof. W. 

 H. Pratt, then engaged as writing teacher. This casual acquaintance 

 soon ripened into a lasting friendship, and ere long weekly Satur- 

 day excursions were planned to collect shells and other objects of 

 natural histor}^ along the course of the Mississippi, or on the line of 

 railroad excavations. An early journal in pencil gives lively details 

 of these explorations, and we see in them the budding inclinations 

 of the young entomologist swelling out under the genial encourage- 

 ment of his friendly instructor. Naturally in such interviews the 

 existence of a slumbering Academy of Natural Sciences comes to the 

 knowledge of the junior member of the firm, and we note in the 

 records which he afterwards so diligently put in print, the simple 

 announcement that on June 2d, 1869, Mrs. M. L. D. Putnam and J. 

 Duncan Putnam were by one vote unanimously elected members of 

 the Academy. To be elected in this latter case did not mean a dead- 

 letter record, and in the same pocket journal we note the following 

 item, "July 9th, 1869, I attended for the first time to-night, having 

 been elected a member of the Davenport Academy of Natural 

 Sciences which holds its regular meetings the last Friday of each 

 month. Father went with me. This was an adjourned meetiiig to 

 discuss the methods to be used in i-aising the funds to take photo- 

 graphs of the great eclipse next August, and to hear the report of 

 the committee appointed on the same subjc^-t, but no definite action 

 could be taken, so the meeting adjourned till next Friday evening, 

 at 7i o'clock." 



Significant in many ways is this l)rief record. The Academy of 



