Dkckmbbe 19, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



969 



chartered in 1662. The membership was 

 larger and less exclusive than in the case 

 of the Paris Academy, and there has not 

 been a division into sections. Under the 

 existing statutes fifteen fellows are elected 

 annually, and the membership numbers 

 about 450. The fellows do not receive 

 pensions as in the continental academies, 

 but pay dues. The society, however, ad- 

 ministers a government fund for research 

 (£4,000 annually) , and has in many ways 

 cooperated with the government. There 

 has been this year established a British 

 Academy for the Promotion of Historical, 

 Philosophical and Philological Studies. 



The Accademia del Cimento, begun in 

 Florence in 1657, and the Collegium 

 Curiosum begun in Altorff, Pranconia, in 

 1672, are types of the scientific clubs of the 

 time. Somewhat later academies were 

 established in various centers—the Berlin 

 Academy in accordance with the plan of 

 Leibnitz in 1700 and the St. Petersburg 

 Academy by Peter the Great in 1724. The 

 members receive salaries from the govern- 

 ment; at St. Petersburg these are liberal, 

 BO that at one time eminent foreigners, 

 such as Nicholas and Daniel Bernoulli, 

 were attracted to St. Petersburg by mem- 

 bership. Similar academies were estab- 

 lished in the capitals and other cities of 

 the continent— at Stockholm, Copenhagen, 

 Munich, Madrid and elsewhere. These 

 imperial and royal academies were patron- 

 ized by kings and princes and were part 

 of the court life of the time. 



The American Philosophical Society, 

 modeled by Franklin on the Royal Society, 

 had its beginnings at Philadelphia in 1743 ; 

 and the American Academy of Arts and 

 Sciences, modeled by Adams on the Paris 

 Academy, was established at Boston in 

 1780. Both institutions were originally of 

 national scope and still maintain this char- 

 acter to a certain extent. Academies more 



local in character were subsequently estab- 

 lished in diiferent cities, the Connecticut 

 Academy of Arts and Sciences, founded at 

 New Haven in 1799, being the oldest of 

 these. Our own academy of sciences was 

 organized in 1817 as the Lyceum of Natural 

 History in the City of New York. The 

 National Academy of Sciences was incor- 

 porated by congress in 1863. It was born 

 into a world that has changed, and we may 

 hope progressed, since the golden age of 

 academies. The difi'erentiation of the sci- 

 ences, the dispersal of our men of science 

 over a wide area and the general trend of 

 democratic institutions are not favorable 

 to the academy of the type that flourished 

 in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 



The nineteenth century witnessed an ex- 

 traordinary development of scientific ac- 

 tivity throughout the world. Each science 

 has had its great leaders who have estab- 

 lished new fundamental principles and 

 new lines of investigation, while the 

 workers in the ranks are now a great army. 

 I have had occasion during the past year 

 to compile a biographical catalogue of the 

 living men of science of the United States. 

 On my preliminary list there are eight 

 thousand who have published scientific 

 papers, with a few exceptions, admitted be- 

 cause they are engaged in teaching or other 

 scientific work of some importance. I 

 estimate that the scientific men of the 

 world number about 50,000, not counting 

 those physicians, engineers and others who 

 do not directly contribute to the advance- 

 ment of science, nor those who are engaged 

 in historical, philological and other studies, 

 not commonly included in the natural and 

 exact sciences. 



Under these circumstances scientific or- 

 ganization has been compelled to adjust 

 itself to new conditions. The two great 

 developments have been the establishment 

 of large national associations holding mi- 



