96 
WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
real interest it is to institute them early, and continue them 
steadily, until complete knowledge is gained of their material 
resources in every department. 
It is clearly the bounden duty of every government to do 
what it can, both directly and indirectly, to promote the ap¬ 
plications of science and art to the various practical industries. 
Is it any less its duty to do all it can for the advancement of 
science itself, to which, however abstract and useless its determi¬ 
nations may at first appear, we must finally trace all those inven¬ 
tions, discoveries and improvements which have lifted the race 
of men lrom the depths and darkness of barbarism and placed 
it on the high road to a true civilization? 
There are two v* ays in which enlightened governments are 
accustomed to seek the accomplishment of their ends : first, by 
the direct employment ot competent men to perform the vari¬ 
ous duties definitely assigned them; secondly, by granting 
moral encouragement and pecuniary aid to associations of men 
whose love of original researches and investigations leads 
them into such labors. Sometimes both these methods are 
employed at once. In other cases the means of government 
are almost wholly confined to one. But there is no enlight¬ 
ened country, and in this country no enlightened state, ad¬ 
vanced beyond the stage of very infancy, in which such asso¬ 
ciations—usually known by the name of academy or society — 
do not exist, or which does not in some way extend to them a 
fostering care. 
The Wisconsin Academy was organized and is to be man¬ 
aged in the common interest of the sciences, the practical and 
fine arts, and of literary culture and research. A leading ob¬ 
ject is the making of such explorations in all parts of the state 
as will bring to the knowledge of the public the location, ex¬ 
tent and value of its various metallic ores, quarries, and use¬ 
ful minerals of any sort, as well as the character of its soils, 
timber, etc., its climatic peculiarities, and whatever else may 
have any important relation to its growth in material pros¬ 
perity. 
