392 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INDIANA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



of Mr. Cox was the beginning of the earlier, if not the more recent, pros- 

 perity for which the state has long been noted. From the standpoint of 

 the industries and wealth the twenty years following the civil war were 

 crucial in this state. 



In this connection I cannot refrain from mentioning still more recent 

 work which is of great moment to the people of the state. I refer to the 

 notable work of Harvey W. Wiley, a pioneer chemist of the state, who, by 

 his interest in the welfare of the people, awoke the nation, as well as the state, 

 to the importance of the pure food question, and who is the author and de- 

 fender of many of the pure food laws of the country. Through his interest 

 in agriculture and his work and writings on the chemical side of this field of 

 work he has stimulated practical research and added much to the health 

 and prosperity of the nation. No less splendid and important has been the 

 work of another man who, in his earlier years, was a chemist in the employ 

 of the state in the department of Geology. I am tliinking of our neighbor. 

 Dr. J. N. Hurty, and his work on sanitation and preventive medicine. His 

 work is also nation wide, and he has l^rought lionor and, what is more import- 

 ant to us, an increased measure of health to those who are living now and who 

 will live here in the ages to come. Both of these men rank equally with the 

 Owen brothers, Co.x and others in the work they have done for our common- 

 wealth. 



There is another phase of the subject about whicli 1 wisli to speak liriefly. 

 It has reference to the development of chemistry in the higher educational 

 institutions of tlie state. Like the more material industries education started 

 rather tardily. The common school system was begun in 1824; l)ut for lack 

 of financial su])i)ort was not well organized until 1S52; and only in 1865 was 

 its normal development certain. In the meantime small colleges were 

 springing up like mushrooms, but, being under the care of some church or 

 denomination without much financial support, their development was slow and 

 precarious. It must be said, however, that in comparison with their size 

 and educational advantages, their influence was very great. Many of them 

 have survived and are today among the strongest agencies for development in 

 the state. In their curricula they patterned after Harvard. Yale and Prince- 

 ton, but, unlike the.se institutions they had no well defined functions and no 

 permanent standing. As late as December, 1878, President Tuttk;, of Wabash 

 (^ollege, in comparing the eastern colleges with the western said, "There 

 the college is a well defined thing, and a greatly prized thing. Here the 

 college is so indefinite a thing that it means many things which are not very 

 similar. Not a dog wags his tail against Yale or Princeton, but who is there 

 here but feels at liberty to cast a stone at the college, whatever its pretensions? 

 Our rights are questioned and our methods denounced." 



Dr. Tuttle, whom some of us remember with great reverence as "The 

 grand old man" was, at that time, in the zenith of his power and influence 

 in the state. By education he was a pure classicist, and for sixteen years 



