IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 
87 
GREETINGS FROM THE ILLINOIS ACADEMY, BY HENRY B. WARD. 
It is my great privilege this evening as a delegate from the Illinois Academy 
of Science and from the University of Illinois to bring to the Iowa Academy of 
Science greetings laden with congratulations for the success of the past and 
with good wishes for still greater success in the future. 
Although the state of Illinois antedates in settlement by more than a century 
the state in which we are gathered together, yet the Illinois Academy of Science 
was not founded until December, 1907, and, hardly more than four years old, is 
thus a mere infant in comparison with the Iowa Academy, today in its vigorous 
youth as it celebrates its quarter century. And this is the second Iowa Academy 
for the first' was born in 1875 and lapsed in 1884, leaving an unfilled gap of 
less than three years between it and the present organization. To be sure there 
was not wanting in the earlier days of Illinois efforts to organize somewhat 
similar societies. The Illinois Natural History Society, which proclaimed itself 
to be “for the advancement of science,” was organized on June 30, 1858, and even 
received a charter from the legislature on February 22, 1861. It formed a state 
museum “for the use and benefit of the state”*. It organized a Natural History 
Survey and planned to acquire a broad knowledge of the natural history of 
the state through a splendid series of voluntary commissions for particular 
fields led by enthusiastic and energetic men interested in the various phases of 
nature. Furthermore, its first president. Professor J. B. Turner of Jacksonville, 
famous as a leader** in the movement for industrial education which achieved 
nation-wide scope and world-wide approval, gave to the young organization di- 
rection, energy, and prestige. In spite of its splendid achievements this first 
society did not succeed in arousing general public support, and a second similar 
organization found itself equally unable to enlist that general cooperation which 
is essential to continued success. 
It is always a difficult problem to determine the reasons for such different 
results in similar movements and it is surely an invidious task to institute 
comparisons. This much, however, is clear: Agriculture in Illinois was profit- 
able; it held a strong but not controlling position in the public mind. Com- 
merce in Illinois had been immensely successful for more than a century since 
the old traders making use of the waterways of lakes and rivers established 
trade routes between the north and the south. Manufacturing and industries 
of various kinds had built up numerous profitable ventures at many points along 
lakes and rivers. In the presence of these movements for commercial develop- 
ment the energies of the population were so completely called into exercise that 
education languished. It was not until 1867 that Illinois established its State 
University, some twenty years later than Iowa had taken this step, and even 
after its establishment the support and interest bestowed upon the institution 
were distinctly subordinate to that which was given by less richly endowed 
communities that surrounded it. 
On the other hand, Iowa seems to have laid an early emphasis on education. 
From Cornell on the east to Tabor on the west a string of colleges demonstrate 
the ideals and battle for the principles of the early settlers; even if the realiza- 
tion of these hopes has. in some cases fallen short of that the founders had 
*See Forbes S. A., History of the Former State Natural History Societies of 
Illinois. Trans. HP. State Acad. Sci., 1908, 1:18. 
**See James, E. J. The Origin of the Land Grant Act of 1862 -Univ. Studies, 
1910, 4:1-) 
