64 



when this State is unable to produce anything else, it can produce dis- 

 tinguished men. 



I suppose a charter member is expected to be more or less reminiscent. 

 and there are two or three things that the other speakers have left un- 

 mentioned. 



In its early days, twenty-five years ago, this Academy meant a great 

 deal to those who were members, and for two or three reasons. I think 

 Dr. Jordan and Amos Butler, for example, will bear me out in this. In 

 the first place this State science was comparatively new : it was new to 

 us. new to the State, and new to the country. We came together as a set 

 of young men who were interested in a new thing with a sort of fine en- 

 thusiasm with respect to the unknown that is found everywhere. In the 

 next place, the instruction in science, with which all of us were more or 

 less concerned, was just as new. It was even newer, because in those days 

 the position of science in the colleges we represented was more or less 

 doubtful and some of the things we taught were often looked at askance. 

 The whole situation in the matter of scientific instruction was in its very 

 beginnings. This also gave us a fine enthusiasm, a sort of feeling of com- 

 radeship in a campaign. We felt the need of companionship, and we 

 found it in the Academy. We would come here from our various colleges, 

 full of enthusiasm, and talk over the problems, and this formed a nucleus 

 of sentiment, an esprit du corps that first developed among us. and which 

 has since developed and given to the Academy the place it now occupies in 

 the State. I think perhaps a feature that sustained us. and that made as 

 much for the solidarity of this Academy as any other, was that one of our 

 first campaigns in the State was educational. Science was fighting for its 

 life, for a place in the colleges. There was another association that met 

 at the same time in Indianapolis, known as the "College Association," and 

 one of the functions of the Academy was to lay plans to assault that "Col- 

 lege Association/' I remember distinctly one of the things we had to com- 

 bat. There was a tendency to antagonize the intellectual tastes of the 

 students in those days, and one of the old professors said he thought that 

 the very thing a student needed was the thing he disliked the most. If 

 he disliked mathematics, make him take it; if he disliked Greek, make 

 him take it. That was one of the educational slogans at that day, — every 

 student needs what he dislikes. I have an idea that no one thing could 

 have brought us closer together in our community of interest than the 

 discussion of these educational questions. 



