THE ACADEMY: ITS PAST AND FUTURE. 
J. J. DAVIS. 
(Address of the Retiring President, Delivered February 8, 1906.) 
The constitution of the Academy prescribes that the retiring 
president shall give an address ; and this though he have no 
message to deliver, no art of speech with which to please. And 
yet, perfunctory though it he, it should he an easy task to ad¬ 
dress the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters. 
Lor, if one chooses to be cold and formal and precise, even tech¬ 
nical, science will justify him. Or, if he chooses to unfold the 
wings of fancy or deck his arrow with more feathers than are 
needed to direct its flight, surely art and letters will justify 
him there. But do not fear; it is not my purpose to attempt 
either of these courses, but rather to cast a brief backward 
glance and peer for a moment into the dark-enveloped future. 
The Academy might be said to have had its inception in a 
letter written by Hon. John W. Hoyt and addressed to various 
residents of Wisconsin who he thought might be interested in 
the formation of such an organization. The replies were of 
such a character as to lead him to circulate a call for a meeting 
which was signed by many of the men who were making the 
history of Wisconsin at that time. The meeting was held in 
this city in February 1870, and the organization of the Wis¬ 
consin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters was effected. 
The first meeting for the reading of papers was held the follow¬ 
ing July. The first paper published was “On the classification 
of the sciences,” by Bev. A. O. Wright of Waterloo, whose 
name appears frequently in the earlier Transactions as a con- 
55—S. & A. 
