IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 
dreamed, yet the educational movement has given it strong support in all grades 
of the educational system. 
Without doubt another favorable element is to be found in the establishment 
and growth of the Davenport Academy which, organized in 1867 and beginning 
its publications in 1876, had by its success aroused a sentiment among the 
educated public favorable to such enterprise. The men who came together at 
the first meeting of the Iowa Academy were intimately familiar with the work 
of the Davenport Academy and their contact with that institution had inspired 
them with the spirit of its work and with the helpfulness of is plans. Certainly 
in the broad development of colleges with their enthusiastic teachers of natural 
history, in the generous support of the early established State University and 
its corps of vigorous scientific workers, and finally in the infiuence that went 
out from the Davenport Academy, are to be found important factors in bringing 
about the early organization and vigorous growth of the Iowa Academy of 
Science. 
The original academies of the old world were assemblies of scholars who 
gathered together collections brought from new and strange lands, and whose 
meetings dispelled the dogmatism that was born of the isolation of earlier days, 
while at the same time the personal contact with men and materials aroused 
enthusiasm and developed the scientific method. The Academy is distinctly 
the agent of the field and the age in which it is born and serves that time and 
place best when its attention is devoted most distinctly to the special problems 
that exist there. The modern academy has found its functions along analagous 
lines: First, in the preservation of local' data*; second, in the stimulus to 
local study, and, third, in the development of local interest. Because of its 
early organization the Davenport Academy was able to bring together a priceless 
collection representing the aboriginal life of the state and the region. Such a 
collection cannot be duplicated, and in the absence of such an agency would 
have been in large part at least, forever lost to the world. The Iowa Academy 
in its publications has an invaluable series of records concerning the natural 
history of the state during a change so radical that much which existed then 
has disappeared forever, and some of the things which have come into exist- 
ence in recent years were entirely unknown in those earlier days. In the 
series of twenty-five meetings which have been held under its auspices there 
have been drawn together teachers and workers from over the whole state. This 
has aroused in them a common interest; it has stimulated others to participate 
in this work; it has started on a career of scientific usefulness many a student 
who has been a half interested, or perhaps only a casual, listener in its dis- 
cussions or reader of its publications. It would be impossible to calculate the 
full value of such a movement to the state; and unnecessary to justify the need 
of its continuance. 
In closing I may be permitted to indicate one point of great importance which 
will need added emphasis in the coming years of the history of this Academy. 
If the local Academy had existed merely for itself, or the state organization 
had not drawn into its circle those who were connected with other educational 
institutions, the infiuence of its work would have been far less. Modern busi- 
ness success has been achieved by eflficient organization and combination on a 
large scale, and it is not too much to hope that in the next quarter of a century 
*See Osborn, H., Local Problems in Science. Proc. Iowa Acad, for 1888, P 19. 
