CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF THE ACAD KM V. 2'. 1 



"As the art* and sciem tare the foundation and support of agriculture, manufactures, and cowmen ; 

 as they are necessary to the w dth, \ •ce y independe\ , and ha\ nness of a people; essentially promot 

 the honor and dignity of the government which patronii them ; and as they arc most * tually culti- 

 vated and diffused through a State by the forming and incorporating of men of g s and learning 



into public Societies: " 



For these beneficial purposes the Academy was 1 rmed. 



The list of incorporated members, recited in alphabetical order, includes the honored names of 

 Adams (Samuel and John), Bowdoin, Chauncy, Gushing, Dalton, Dana, Gardner, Bancock, Hoi ike 

 Jackson, Lincoln, Lowell, Oliver, Paine, Phillips, Pickering, Sewall, Sullivan, Warren, Wigglesworth, 

 Willard and Winthrop. Governor Bowdoin was the first President, and his successors were: John 

 Adams, Edward Augustus Holyoke, John Quincy Adams, Nathaniel Bowditch, James Jackson, John 

 Pickering, Jacob Bigelow, Asa Gray, and Charli Francis Adama 



The Academy had an honorable origin, and has sustained, and still holds, an honored position 



among the learned Societies of the world. It is favorably known among its peers, if h < known in 



the city and community in which its quiet operations ha\ b n carried on. It has promot I 



investigation; it has published at its own expense, out of scanty means, nearly thirty \"lumcs of 

 Memoirs and Proceedings; and most of its publications are original contributions to Science in the 

 broadest sense, and to the liberal and useful Arts. Increasing its activity with the increase of 

 scientific men and earnest students in this vicinity, its published results have become more and 

 more numerous as well as more valuable; and for several yeai past it has brought out a yearly 

 volume of researches which it is thought would he creditable to any of the Royal Societies and 

 Imperial Academies of Europe. The influence of the Academy upon the pi gress of science would 

 have more prominently appeared if its pecuniary means were at all proportioned to the scientific 

 activity it has incited. For lack of means, many important researches here originated are published 

 elsewhere, or remain unpublished, or are shorn of needful illustration. 



The Academy is also the administrator of a responsible trust, founded by Count Kumfonl, for 

 the advancement of the knowledge of light and heat and of their practical applications. Moreover, 

 the Academy has slowly accumulated a library of special richness in the departments of physics, 

 chemistry, technology and mathematics, and in the transactions of the learned societies with which 

 it corr i>onds ; and it has no plac of its own in which to preserve and use it. 



Upon attaining what may be called its majority, the Aci my will make an effort to obtain a 

 modest independent establishment It has formed its charae ir; it has earned a good name. It 

 wants a local habitation, a house of its own, where its meetings can be held and its archives and 

 library preserved and conveniently used. Even more, it wants a fund for the publication of its 

 Menioi) and Proceedings, The Academy is supported mainly by assessments upon its Resident 

 Fellows, which sometimes pre s heavily upon those to whom the institution is most helpful and 

 whose labors may be expected to add most to its renown. T< ) the publication of the results of the 

 self-denving labors of the men whose minds it stimulates, and whose success it crowns and secures 

 by bringing them before the scientific world, the Academy is indebted for its reputation ; and it is 

 onlv bv such rmh ication that its character can be maintained and extended. 



