226 WISCOXSIN" ACADEMY SCIEiN'CES, AET3, AND LETTERS. 



rons of the academy a ground of satisfaction that its development 

 has been characterized bj^ so strong a bent in this particukir direc- 

 tion. 



In the other departments there have been fewer laborers. Still, 

 it will not escape observation that many of the best thinkers and 

 investigators of the State have sfiven to the Academy the lesults of 

 careful and protracted inquiry in the several nelds embraced within 

 the broad domain of the Academy. 



In this country, Speculative Philosophj- finds comparatively lit- 

 tle recognition as a means of scientific progress, and is therefore 

 without the cultivation it merits. Nevertheless, it is not without 

 creditable representation in this, as it was not in oar last volume 

 of Transactions. 



The Department of Social and Political Sciences embraces so vast 

 a range of subjects for inqun-y, and appeals so directly and strongly 

 to the public mind that a more rapid grov/th of it might reasonably 

 have been expected. It is not wanting in activity, however, and 

 gives promise of more substantial progress in the future, through 

 the reinforcements hkely to come to it from the learned professions 

 and from special students of Social Philo3oph\% and of statesman- 

 ship. 



The Department of Letters is also in need of reinforcements. 

 The contributions heretofore made have been both interesting and 

 valuable, however; some of them justly insuring commendation 

 from distinguished Eu)*opean savans. 



At the late annual meeting, the department of the arts was di- 

 vided into the '' Department of Practical Arts" and the "Depart- 

 ment of the Fine Arts." Neither of these has yet received much 

 development. Still it is believed that the creation of separate de- 

 partments will prove advantageous. There are numerous invent- 

 ors, scientific artizans and practical observers and experimenters in 

 Wisconsin, who, if brought together within the pale of a depart- 

 ment of the Academy exclusively devoted to the progress of the 

 useful arts, would make it eminently successful. So, too, there are 

 .artists and cultivators of art in sufficient number, if united, to make 

 the Department of the Fine Arts at once a means of mutual advan- 

 tage, and of increasinsf art culture in the State, as well as of initia- 

 ting the formation at the seat of the Academy, and in joint con- 

 nection with it and the State Univer&itj', of a Gallery of Art, coupled 

 with an Academy of Design. 



