CHAPTER III 

 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF THE INCORPORATORS 



THE tumultuous days of a great war would hardly seem 

 a propitious time for the formation of an association to 

 promote the arts of peace. Men of science, like men 

 from every other department of life, were engaged directly or 

 indirectly in the struggle, and it seems unlikely that any of them, 

 and especially those in prominent positions, would find the 

 leisure, or be in a mood, to consider the qualifications of their 

 confreres for membership in an academy. The peculiar circum- 

 stances of the time must have greatly increased the difficulties 

 of this delicate task. It has been suggested that the exigencies 

 of the day account for the large number of men connected with 

 the military and naval branches of the Government that were 

 included among the incorporators. This may be true, as the 

 founders of the Academy undoubtedly had the idea that it would 

 be a help to the Government, but a more just view is, perhaps, 

 that so many men of high scientific attainments were connected 

 with the Army and Navy that the choice naturally lay in that 

 direction. 



It would be interesting to know how the selection of incor- 

 porators was guided, but no records at present available reveal 

 the facts. A clew is, perhaps, to be found by a study of the mem- 

 bership of scientific organizations already in existence when the 

 Academy was founded. There were three general societies, the 

 American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of 

 Arts and Sciences, and the American Association for the Ad- 

 vancement of Science. From a comparison of the lists of those 

 who were members between 1860 and 1863*, it appears that from 

 two-thirds to nearly three-fourths of the incorporators of the 



1 The meetings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science were sus- 

 pended during the Civil War. 



103 



