708 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 
Fourth Session, 7:00 P. M. 
The University Club. 
This, the closing session of the meeting, took the form of a 
commemorative dinner, at which 125 guests were present, Presi¬ 
dent Birge presiding as toastmaster. 
Each guest was presented with a reprint of the first Bulletin 
of the Academy, which was issued in April, 1870. 
The general topic of the session was the Relation of the Acad¬ 
emies to Research; and the speakers were 
Bishop Samuel Fallows, of the Reformed Episcopal Church, Chi¬ 
cago; 
President Melvin A. Brannon, Beloit College, Beloit; 
Professor William Trelease, University of Illinois, Urbana; 
Superintendent Joseph Schafer, Wisconsin State Historical Society, 
Madison. 
In his opening remarks the President announced that the 
Academy would have two memorials to mark this turning point 
in its history. First, a memorial volume is provided for by the lib¬ 
erality of the state. At the last meeting of the State Legisla¬ 
ture a special appropriation of $2000.00 was made, to enable 
the Academy to publish a volume of transactions which would 
be more worthy of the occasion than those which we are ordi¬ 
narily able to issue. 
The second memorial is a medallion to be struck in bronze, 
which commemorates fifty years of science in the state. A full 
account of this will be found on pages 711 to 716 of this volume. 
The President then introduced Bishop Fallows, who warned 
against thing-mindedness, which is a besetting vice of the age, 
and advocated person-mindedness as a solution of the difficul¬ 
ties into which the society of today has been brought by the too 
great emphasis which has been placed upon mere things. 
President Brannon, of Beloit College was next introduced, and 
spoke on the great importance of research, using as illustrations 
the work of the Wisconsin Academy in the last fifty years. 
Professor Trealease, of the University of Illinois, was next 
introduced by the President, and he spoke of his former connec¬ 
tion with the University of Wisconsin, furnishing some delight¬ 
ful reminiscences of the town and university of the year 1883, 
He then proceeded to speak of the function of the Academy in 
