IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 
73 
THE PROGRESS IN PHYSICS IN IOWA IN THE QUARTER CENTURY. 
' • BY FRANK F. ALMY. 
. In attempting to outline the progress in Physics in the State of Iowa since , 
the organization of the Iowa Academy of Sciences, it may be advisable to begin 
with some statement of the status of that subject in the State at that time. 
Note that this was six years before the writer, now selected as the patriarch 
of his group, entered the ranks of teachers of Physics in the State. I can 
hardly appropriate the term physicists, for, in the main, our work has been 
administrative and pedagogical. 
The available inforrhation is rather meagre. I do not think that at the time 
of the organization of this Academy there was a Chair of Physics in any insti- 
tution for higher education in the State. To appropriate the appellation due to 
Oliver Wendell Holmes, there were several “settees” of physical science, but 
not so called, for ‘While the term “physical science” was coined, it had not been 
adopted' into the working vocabulary. At the State University of Iowa, Pro- 
fessor L. W. Andrews was Professor of Physics and Chemistry and Director 
of the Chemical Laboratory. The Department of Physics became a separate de- 
partment in 1889, with A. A. Veblen, who as Assistant Professor had shared 
the “settee” for thkee years, assuming the chair as Acting Professor , of Physics 
and receiving full title the following year. At the Iowa State College Profes- 
sor J. C. Hainer was Professor of Chemistry, Physics and Mechanical Engineer- 
ing; in 1890 Physics and Electrical Engineering became a department, and a 
year later Professor W. S. Franklin came to that department. At the Iowa 
State Normal School Diela Knight was in charge of Natural and Physical 
Sciences and Gymnastics, Professor A. C. Page coming into charge of Natural 
and Physical Sciences in 1889, Professor L. Begeman coming into a separate 
department of Physics in 1899. At Iowa College Professor S. J. Buck was in 
charge of the department of Mathematics, Natural Philosophy and Astronomy 
until 1893, when the writer came to share the bench, and within the year it 
was worked over into two chairs. Mathematics and Astronomy, and Physics. 
At Cornell College Professor Alonzo Collins was Professor of Chemistry and 
Physics. Professor W. S*. Barnard was in charge of the work* in science at 
Drake University. Professor J. L. Tilton has been in charge of the department 
of Geology and Physics at Simpson College since 1888. Professor C. O. Bates 
began his work at Coe College in 1889 in charge of Mathematics, Chemistry and 
Physics, and so continued until 1902, when Professor L. D. Weld came, taking 
the Mathematics and Physics. Courses in Physics were also probably given 
at that time at Central University, Des Moines College, Iowa Wesleyan Uni- 
versity, Lenox, Parsons, Penn, Tabor and Western Colleges and Upper Iowa 
University, but concerning that work I have no data. 
- The subject matter of Physics of that date is fairly represented by Avery’s 
Elements of Natural Philosophy, The New Physics by Professor John Trow- 
bridge, Kimball’s revision of Snell’s Olmstead’s College Philosophy, Atkinson’s 
