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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. L. No. 1282 



young university, at that time less tlian a 

 score of years old, came to found a society 

 whicli has exerted sueli a marked influence 

 upon the progress of science? Perhaps they 

 had absorbed something of the spirit of the 

 place, a spirit of faith in the future, which, in 

 the early days made Cornell a leader in so 

 many lines of university activities, and by the 

 very originality and boldness of the idea which 

 they conceived foreshadowed that for which 

 the society now stands. 



We shall probably never have a complete ac- 

 count of the events in the spring, summer and 

 autumn of 1886 that led to the formal estab- 

 lishment of the society. The existing records 

 are very meager; many of them undated; and 

 what has been written is largely the result of 

 piecemeal compilation. I can, however, give 

 you a glimpse of those early days, so fuU of 

 interest and inspiration to us of the present 

 generation as we look backward, by letting one 

 of the founders speak for himself — Mr. W. H. 

 Riley, of the class of '86, and a charter mem- 

 ber of the Alpha chapter: 



You asked me to tell you about Sigma Xi. Well 

 it has been so long ago that I liave forgotten most 

 of the details but I will tell you as much as I can 

 remember. During my last three years in Cornell 

 I ate with a bunch of boys who were mostly Arts 

 students and most of them very good students. 

 Every spring some of the boys won their Phi Beta 

 keys and of course these were the occasions of con- 

 gratulation and discussion. In the spring of 1886 

 two of my best friends received their keys, which 

 started me to thinking that there should be some 

 honors bestowed on the scientific students who had 

 done good work. I discussed the question with W. 

 A. Day, my chum, an engineering student, and we 

 grew very enthusiastic over it. At this time there 

 was an instructor in Sibley College, Mr. Frank 

 Van Vleck, mth whom we were very intimate. He 

 was a graduate of Stevens Institute and was 

 brought to Cornell by Dr. Thurston when he came 

 from Stevens. We mentioned the subject to Mr. 

 Van Vleck one evening while seated under the 

 trees on the corner of Factory (now Stewart) 

 Avenue and State Street, in front of our boarding 

 house; he was much taken with the scheme and 

 thought it should be worked up immediately. 

 This was about the first of May. From that time 

 until commencement we often held meetings, the 



three of us, under the trees or walking down town. 

 Mr. Van Vleck consulted the faculty and Mr. Day 

 and myself the students. Everybody thought it 

 was a good scheme, but as graduation was so near 

 we could not get them aroused. The week before 

 commencement we had a meeting and decided to 

 stay awhile after the close of college and work the 

 matter up, but I was called home directly after 

 commencement. Mr. Day and Van Vleck stayed 

 until they had everything planned out. We had 

 some correspondence during the summer but it has 

 all been mislaid. Mr. Van Vleck presented his 

 scheme in the fall of 1886 and a society was 

 formed. 



The idea then originated with these three 

 men: Messrs. Eiley and Day, of the class of 

 '86, and Mr. Van Vleck, an instructor in Sibley 

 College and a graduate of Stevens Institute of 

 the class of '84. With them there were asso- 

 ciated in perfecting plans in the autumn of 

 1886, six other young men : three of them grad- 

 uates of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, of 

 the class of '86, then students at Cornell, and 

 one each from the Cornell classes of '86, '87 

 and '88 — young men, under twenty-four, all of 

 them. They planned a society whose watch- 

 word should be " Friendship " ; and they 

 joined hands " in forming a brotherhood in sci- 

 ence and engineering which should promote 

 and encourage by strong personal attachments 

 of friendship the highest and truest advances 

 in the scientific field " and which should " lend 

 aid and encouragement to those newer broth- 

 ers, who, likewise laboring in the same spheres, 

 were aspiring to honored positions." They 

 agreed to " lend their efforts to the establish- 

 ment of an organization to be publicly known 

 as the ' Society of the Sigma Xi.' " 



About the same time the late Professor 

 Henry Shaler Williams, then professor of geol- 

 ogy at Cornell, realizing the need of an honor- 

 ary society for scientific students, similar to 

 Phi Beta Kappa, drew up a plan for a society 

 to be known as " The Society of Modern Scien- 

 tists," the object of which should be to recog- 

 nize by some mark of honor, " those who ex- 

 hibit special ability in investigating, under- 

 standing and inteiTpreting the facts of nature 

 in the various branches of modern science, in 

 order to encourage high attainments among 



