IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 
19 
to the membership, is the opportunity for acquaintance, good fellowship, and 
friendship among the workers in a common field. This alone would be ample 
reason for the time and effort given to the periodical meetings. 
While these societies do not boast of monumental edifices or of great pageantry 
or display, their place in the world of science is determined by the record of 
contribution to the world’s knowledge and this recognition in their several 
spheres will be based on their service to the welfare of the communities in 
which they labor. That this service is a growing one and that its fruition 
in years to come will bring credit to all those who have labored in their pro- 
motion is, I believe, beyond doubt. 
They are centers of research and research is the breath of life for science. 
New investigation and discovery is the essential to activity. This has been 
shown in every period of the world’s history. Witness the stagnation of the 
middle ages, properly called the dark ages, when authority took the place of 
progressive research and the conquest of the unknown. As such centers of re- 
search the academies are factors in the advancement of learning and so of the 
progress of the race. Every one is a force for betterment and speed the day 
when such forces are operative in every state of the nation. 
Sometimes we may think there is an over production of scientific societies, 
especially when dues become payable, but while there may be some with no 
necessary mission, we can learn to discriminate and encourage those of merit. 
There is also, T think, less danger of degeneration in a number of independ- 
ent societies than in a too great centralization with the domination of small 
circles who happen to be, in control. 
This Iowa Academy was preceded by an earlier society organized in 1875, 
and which held meetings up to 1884, when from the removal of some of its 
most active members, and unfortunate disagreement between some of those 
remaining, it ceased to exist. I recall, however, with much pleasure the meetings 
that I attended during the years 1876 to 1884, and the opportunity it afforded 
to become acquainted with the active scientific workers of the state. Profes- 
sors Calvin, McBride, and Hinrichs, from the University, Todd from Tabor, 
Herrick from Grinnell, with Bessey, Fairchild, Macomber of Ames, Putnam of 
Davenport, and Witter of Muscatine, were among the active members in at- 
tendance at those meetings. It was at one of these early meetings (1876) that 
my first effort in the line of a scientific contribution was presented and while 
it appears to have bee'n a very simple and crude affair it naturally marked an 
important step in my own interest in scientific work. I have always felt that 
it was regrettable that this earlier academy had to be abandoned, and it was 
not done until after several sincere efforts to rejuvenate it, that the conclusion 
was finally reached that this was impossible, and the only course left was to 
organize- on a new basis. 
I shall not attempt here a review of the achievements of this academy. Time 
and the command of the details both forbid and this feature is to receive at- 
tention in another part of your program. I wTsh, however, to revert briefly 
to the early hopes of the society and to see in what degree its achievements 
have measured up to those early aspirations. 
In the first annual address before the society, which I may confess here was 
delivered before a mere handful of scientific friends, I presented some ideas 
as to what I conceived to be the opportunity for the society and the lines of 
