ORIGIN OF THE KANSAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 699 
Fortified with Prof. Mudge's indorsement and promised co-operation, I 
returned home, and set the matter before the people of the State through the 
public press. In due time I circulated and published a "call," which received 
the signatures of various scientists and public men in the State, to hold a meet- 
ing in my recitation room, in Lincoln College, September i, 1868. A great 
storm occurred two days before the meeting which seemed likely to interfere 
with it, but Prof. Mudge came down the day before the meeting full of enthus- 
iasm in the new movement, and the meeting was held at the appointed time 
with a very small attendance. At this meeting we organized the Kansas Natural 
History Society, of which Prof. Mudge was elected the first president, and I was 
elected secretary. 
For two years Prof. Mudge and I struggled hard to keep the organization 
alive, for we had great solicitude in regard to its very existence. Public atten- 
tion was often called through the public press to the importance of sustaining 
the new organization, and wherever we lectured in the State we always presented 
the claims of the Society. 
The first annual meeting was held in the Presbyterian Church, at Topeka, 
but there was a very small attendance and little enthusiasm. It was in fact a 
very gloomy time with the Society. There was little or nothing in the treasury, 
and no one seemed to care for science. But Prof Mudge was full of faith in 
our final success, and said " we must not despise the day of small things." We 
agreed to go on notwithstanding the discouragements, and determined we would 
not say " fail " until we actually did fail. The officers were unanimously re- 
elected, for there was great unanimity in the early history of the Society, when 
two or three votes settled the whole matter. In those days we were not troubled 
with any minority reports, and it was usually unnecessary to put the negative of 
the question, for all had voted in the affirmative. 
During the following year we worked faithtuUy in trying to establish the 
Society, but with very little encouragement from the public. Everybody was 
very busy about something else, and science was left to take care of itself. 
At the end of two years we received an invitation from Prof. Snow, indorsed 
by the other Professors of the State University, to hold the annual meeting at 
Lawrence. We gladly accepted the invitation, and the meeting was so well 
attended, and such a desire expressed to enlarge the scope of the Society, that I 
moved resolutions, which were unanimously adopted, that the scope of the 
Society should be enlarged so as to include every line of scientific investigation 
and inquiry, and that the name should be changed from the Kansas Natural 
History Society to the Kansas Academy of Science. General John Fraser stated 
that papers were read at that meeting by Professors Mudge, Snow, Bardwell and 
others, which were worthy of any veteran society. The meeting was one of joy- 
ful interest on the part of those who had labored amidst so many discourage- 
ments, for we believed that the permanency of the organization was now fully 
assured. The growth of the Society has in fact outrun all our early anticipations, 
and from this time on the history of the Academy has been more generally known 
