12 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



National Academy of Sciences had " long been felt by the 

 patriotic scientific men of the United States." Yet it was Bache 

 who first gave the project a definite form and published it to 

 the world. His plan cannot be said to have been copied from 

 those which were formulated by Franklin before the Revolu- 

 tion, or by Barlow, Adams or others in the early years of the 

 Republic, although, as a matter of course, they have some things 

 in common. The earlier projects related especially to the 

 founding of a national university, to initiating research in 

 branches of sciences which had not been cultivated in America, 

 or to aiding the Government in the exploitation and develop- 

 ment of the national domain, and were also concerned with 

 the study of political science, morals, literature and art. 19 At 



"The nearest approach to the Academy plan to be found in connection with the earlier 

 organizations is, perhaps, the proposition put forward by a committee of the National 

 Institute for the Promotion of Science in 1842. At a meeting of the National Institute, held 

 on August 8, 1842, the following report was made by a special committee, proposing to 

 establish an annual scientific convention at Washington: 



" They proposed that a meeting of the learned men of our country, distinguished for their 

 attainments in the different sciences, particularly in those termed physical, should be held 

 annually at the seat of the General Government, at some early period of the session of 

 Congress, under the auspices of the [National] Institute, to communicate the results of 

 their inquiries, to compare their observations, and to promote the general interests of 

 science. It has seemed to the committee that this Institute affords an opportunity, which 

 ought not to be neglected, of concentrating the genius and learning of our country at a 

 common center, from which the beams of intelligence will radiate to gladden and bless the 

 land." (Proc. Nat. Institute, sd Bull., j). 335.) 



"At the meeting of September 12, 1842, Mr. Poinsett, the president, proposed a series of 

 resolutions intended to put the recommendation of the report into effect. All of these 

 resolutions and reports .... were without avail." (Goode G. B. The Genesis of the 

 U. S. National Museum, in Rep. U. S. Nat. Mus. for 1891, p. 294. 1893. See also Proc. 

 Nat. Institute, 3d Bull., p. 336.) 



The purposes of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences are set forth in its 

 charter, from which the following is an extract: 



"That the end and design of the institution of the said Academy is, to promote and 

 encourage the knowledge of the antiquities of America, and of the national history of the 

 country, and to determine the uses to which the various national productions of the 

 country may be applied to promote and encourage medical discoveries, mathematical dis- 

 quisitions, philosophical enquiries and experiments; astronomical, meteorological and geo- 

 graphical observations; and improvements in agriculture, arts, manufactures and commerce; 

 and, in fine, to cultivate every art and science, which may tend to advance the interest, 

 honor, dignity and happiness of a free, independent and victorious people." Charter 

 granted May 4, 1780. (Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, vol. i, 

 1785, p. vii.) 



