4 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LII. No. 1331 



victory. The larger vision that came with 

 the wider interests and experiences of the 

 war, visions of that which was national 

 rather than personal, entered into the new 

 mental attitude. The man whose pre-war 

 thoughts had centered on his farm, his 

 town, or his county, had been forced to 

 dwell on his state and his country at large 

 and he could not permanently shrink back 

 to his former limitations of interest. The 

 man who had marched shoulder to shoulder 

 could not well relapse into personal isola- 

 tion. And so the half decade following the 

 war became the generative period of these 

 broader views and those generous instincts 

 of coordination that led to the organization 

 of a common effort for the intellectual de- 

 velopment of the state. This was the im- 

 mediate pre-period of the founding of the 

 academy. 



, THE FORMAL FOUNDING OF THE ACADEMY 



During this half-decade, voluntary or- 

 ganizations were formed here and there for 

 the promotion of science and for personal 

 culture, and some futile efforts of a more 

 general order were made, all of which were 

 more or less tributary to the coming gen- 

 eral movement. Encouraged by these 

 symptoms of readiness. Dr. J. W. Hoyt, 

 secretary of the State Agricultural Society, 

 worked out a comprehensive scheme for a 

 State Academy. He sent printed copies of 

 this to such citizens of the state as were 

 thought to be interested in such a move- 

 ment, whether or not they were likely to be 

 able to engage in research or to make con- 

 tributions to any phase of science, arts, or 

 letters. He also proposed that a convention 

 be called to organize such an academy. The 

 proposals met with a cordial response and 

 a special call for the proposed convention 

 was issued bearing the signatures of 105 

 representative men of various callings and 

 intellectual interests. In explanation of 



my presence here to-day and my effort to 

 serve you as requested by your president, 

 I may be permitted to say that my name 

 formed the tail end of the list, and that is 

 perhaps why "the rider of the pale horse" 

 has thus far overlooked me in his frequent 

 and fateful visitations. If he shall con- 

 tinue to feel that the vanishing end of the 

 long list is too immaterial to require any 

 notice on his part, his good judgment will 

 meet with my most hearty concurrence. 



The convention met on February 16, 

 1870, and proceeded with great unanimity 

 to organize the Wisconsin Academy of Sci- 

 ences, Arts and Letters. A constitution 

 was adopted, ofScers elected, provision made 

 for incorporation and for the other re- 

 quirements of a new organization. The 

 constitution provided for three depart- 

 ments, embracing respectively the sciences, 

 the arts and letters. Only the first of these 

 was organized at the initial meeting, but a 

 fuller organization was effected during the 

 ensuing year. 



The general purpose of the academy was 

 declared to be the encouragement of in- 

 vestigation and the dissemination of correct 

 views of the various phases of science, lit- 

 erature and the arts. The special purposes 

 of the Department of the Sciences were de- 

 clared to be general scientific research, a 

 progressive and thorough scientific survey 

 of the state under the direction of the offi- 

 cers of the academy, the formation of a 

 scientific museum, and the diffusion of 

 knowledge by the publication of original 

 contributions to science; that of the De- 

 partment of Arts to be the advancement 

 of the useful arts through the application 

 of science and the encouragement of orig- 

 inal invention; the encouragement of the 

 fine arts and the improvement of the pub- 

 lic taste by original contributions to art and 

 by the formation of an art museum ; that of 



