ha Os eokd 
GENERAL PAPERS 81 
IS THE STATE ACADEMY OF SCIENCE WORTH 
WHILE? 
J. L. Pricer, Srare Normau University 
In these days of flux and change, when everything is taking 
on new values, and when new calls are being made on all of us 
for time and energy and sacrifice, it may be well to scrutinize 
almost any existing institution as to its worthwhileness. 
The Illinois Academy of Science had a most propitious be- 
ginning, enrolling as it did, almost every scientist of any prom- 
inence in the State, as a charter member. It seemed to give 
promise at the time of its birth, of becoming at once, one of the 
strongest organizations of its kind in the country. But of 
course, there was in this promise of vigor and usefulness, and 
in the plan of organization, as laid down in the constitution, a 
confident expectation that the State would soon recognize the 
value of the organization and give it the aid it needed to 
to function properly, in the service of the commonwealth. We 
seem to have been possessed of a perennial hope that the State 
would ultimately recognize our worth and bestow upon us the 
financial aid necessary to vitilize our organization, and to 
carry over to the point of effective service, the energy, and 
time and money that we as members could afford and were will- 
ing to put into it. While this hope which has been kept alive 
by a small bit of realization in the form of a small grant from 
the State Treasury for the biennium of 1911-12, and by re- 
peated passage of an appropriation for us by both houses of the 
legislature,—while this hope has been a stimulating factor, 
during the eleven years of our history, doubtless some of us are 
beginning to feel that we can not continue to exist on hope 
alone. ; 
Now, we are facing a large financial deficit, which we in- 
curred under the delusion, that our hopes had _ been 
finally realized. While nearly every member from whom I have 
heard, seems determined to make what further sacrifices are 
necessary to raise money with which to meet our obligations 
and to put the organization intact once more and ready to con- 
tinue its demands of the State, I have some intimation that a 
