In a memorandum written in 1809, Mr. Adams gave his recollections of the circumstances which led to his deep and lasting interest in scientific foundations.

"In travelling from Boston to Philadelphia, in 1774, 5, 6 and 7, I had several times amused myself at Norwalk in Connecticut, with the very curious collection of birds and insects of American production made by Mr. Arnold;1 a collection which he afterwards sold to Governor Tryon, who sold it to Sir Ashton Lever, in whose apartments in London I afterwards viewed it again. This collection was so singular a thing that it made a deep impression upon me, and I could not but consider it a reproach to my country, that so little was known, even to herself, of her natural history.

"When I was in Europe, in the years 1778 and 1779, in the commission to the King of France, with Dr. Franklin and Mr. Arthur Lee, I had opportunities to see the King's collection and many others, which increased my wishes that nature might be examined and studied in my own country, as it was in others. "In France among the Academicians, and other men of science and letters, I was frequently entertained, with inquiries concerning the Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, and with eulogiums on the wisdom of that institution, and encomiums on some publications in their Transactions. These conversations suggested to me the idea of such an establishment in Boston, where I knew there was as much love of science, and as many gentlemen who were capable of pursuing it, as in any other city of its size.

"In 1779, I returned to Boston on the French Frigate 'La Sensible,' with the Chevalier de la Luzerne and M. Marbois. The Corporation of Harvard College gave a public dinner in honor of the French Ambassador and his suite, and did me the honor of an invitation to dine with them. At table in the Philosophy Chamber, I chanced to sit next to Dr. Cooper. I entertained him during the whole of the time we were together, with an account of Arnold's collections, the collection I had seen in Europe, the compliments I had heard in France upon the Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, and concluded with proposing that the future legislature of Massachusetts should institute an Academy of Arts and Sciences.

1 Some local antiquary may make an interesting contribution to the literature of American museum-work by looking up the history of this collection. 'The Chevalier Anne César de la Luzerne [1741-1821] was French Minister to the United States from 1779 to 1783, afterwards Minister to England. M. François de Barbé Marbois [1745-1837] was his Secretary of Legation, and after the return of his chief to France, was chargé d'affaires until 1785. For many interesting facts, not elsewhere accessible, concerning the career of these men in the United States, and their acquaintance with Adams, see John Durand's admirable "New Materials for a History of the American Revolution." New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1889. 12°, pp. i-vi, 1-310.

3 Rev. Samuel Cooper, D. D. [1725-83], an eminent patriot, long pastor of Brattle Street Church in Boston, and a leading member of the corporation of Harvard. He was the first president of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

"The Doctor at first hesitated, thought it would be difficult to find members who would attend to it; but the principal objection was, that it would injure Harvard College, by setting up a rival to it, that might draw the attention and affections of the Public in some degree from it. To this I answered,—first, that there were certainly men of learning enough that might compose a society sufficiently numerous; and secondly, that instead of being a rival to the University, it would be an honor and an advantage to it. That the President and principal professors would, no doubt, be always members of it; and the meetings might be ordered, wholly or in part, at the College and in that room. The Doctor at length appeared better satisfied; and I entreated him to propagate the idea and the plan, as far and as soon as his discretion would justify. The Doctor did accordingly diffuse the project so judiciously and effectually, that the first legislature under the new constitution adopted and established it by law. Afterwards when attending the convention for forming the constitution, I mentioned the subject to several of the members, and when I was appointed by the sub-committee to make a draught of a project of a constitution, to be laid before the convention, my mind and heart were so full of this subject, that I inserted the provision for the encouragement of literature in chapter fifth, section second. I was somewhat apprehensive that criticism and objections would be made to the section, and particularly that the 'Natural History' and theGood humor' would be stricken out; but the whole was received very kindly, and passed the convention unanimously, without amendment."

"1

'The provision in the State Constitution of which Mr. Adams speaks, was the following:

"THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF LITERATURE, ETC., Wisdom and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among the body of the people, being necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties, and as these depend on spreading the opportunities and advantages of education in the various parts of the country, and among the different orders of the people, it shall be the duty of legislators and magistrates in all future periods of the commonwealth, to cherish the interests of literature and the sciences, and all seminaries of them especially the university at Cambridge, public schools, and grammar schools in the towns, to encourage private societies and public institutions, rewards and immunities for the promotion of agriculture, arts, sciences, commerce, trades, manufactures, and a natural history of the country to countenance and inculcate the principles of humanity and general benevolence, public and private charity, industry and frugality, honesty and punctuality in their dealings, sincerity, good humour, and all social affections and generous sentiments among the people."

"This feature of the constitution of Massachusetts," writes Mr. Adams's biographer, "is peculiar, and in one sense original with Mr. Adams. The recognition of the obligation of a State to promote a higher and more extended policy than is embraced in the protection of the temporal interests and political rights of the individual, however understood among enlightened minds, had not at that time been formally made a part of the organic law. Those clauses since inserted in other State constitutions which, with more or less of fullness, acknowledged the same principle, are all manifestly taken from this source."

The two societies are still institutions of national importance, not only because of a time-honored record of useful work, but on account of important general trusts under their control. Although all their meetings are held in the cities where they were founded, their membership is not localized, and to be a "Member of the American Philosophical Society" or a " Fellow of the American Academy," is an honor highly appreciated by every American scientific man.

The Philosophical Society (founded before the separation of the colonies) copied the Royal Society of Great Britain in its corporate name, as well as in that of its transactions, and in its ideals and methods of work took it for a model.

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The American Academy, on the other hand, had its origin at a time when Britain was regarded as an inveterate enemy, and France as a generous patron, and its founders have placed upon record the statement that it was their intention "to give it the air of France rather than that of England, and to follow the Royal Academy rather than the Royal Society. And so in Boston, the Academy published "Memoirs," while conservative Philadelphia continued to issue "Philosophical Transactions."

In time, however the prejudice against the motherland became less intense, and the Academy in Boston followed the general tendency of American scientific workers, which has always been more closely parallel with that of England than that of continental Europe, contrasting strongly with the disposition of modern educational administrators to build after German models.

It would have been strange indeed if the deep-seated sympathy with France which our forefathers cherished had not led to still other attempts to establish organizations after the model of the French Academy of Sciences. The most ambitious of these was in connection with the "Academy of Arts and Sciences of the United States of America," whose central seat was to have been in Richmond, Virginia, and whose plan was brought to America, in 1788,

1 Letter of Manasseh Cutler to Dr. Jonathan Stokes, August 17, 1785. 'Cutler, 1. c.

by the Chevalier Quesnay de Beaurepaire. This project, we are told, had been submitted to the King of France and to the Royal Academy of Science, and had received an unqualified endorsement signed by many eminent men, among others by Lavoisier and Condorcet, as well as a similar paper from the Royal Academy of Paintings and Sculpture, signed by Vernet and others. A large sum was subscribed by the wealthy planters of Virginia and by the citizens of Richmond, a building was erected, and one professor, Dr. Jean Rouelle, was appointed, who was also commissioned "mineralogistin-chief" and instructed to make natural history collections in America and Europe. The population of Virginia was far too scattered and rural to give any chance of success for a project which in its nature was only practicable in a commercial and intellectual metropolis, and the Academy died almost before it was born.

"Quesnay's scheme was not altogether chimerical," writes H. B. Adams, "but in the year 1788 France was in no position, financial or social, to push her educational system in Virginia. The year Quesnay's suggestive little tract was published was the year before the French Revolution, in which political maelstrom every thing in France went down. If circumstances had favored it, the Academy of the United States of America, established at Richmond, would have become the centre of higher education, not only for Virginia, but for the whole South, and possibly for a large part of the North, if the Academy had been extended, as proposed, to the cities of Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York. Supported by French capital, to which in large measure we owe the success of our Revolutionary War, strengthened by French prestige, by liberal scientific and artistic associations with Paris, then the intellectual capital of the world, the Academy at Richmond might have become an educational stronghold, comparable in some degree to the Jesuit influence in Canada, which has proved more lasting than French dominion, more impregnable than the fortress of Quebec."1

1 Copies of Quesnay's pamphlet are preserved in the Virginia State Library at Richmond, and in the Andrew D. White Historical Library of Cornell

Our forefathers in colonial times had their national universities beyond the sea, and all of the young colonists who were able to do so, went to Oxford or Cambridge for their classical degrees, and to Edinburgh and London for training in medicine, for admission to the bar, or for clerical orders. Local colleges seemed as unnecessary as did local scientific societies.

Many attempts were made to establish local societies before final results were accomplished, and the beginnings of the national college system had a similar history.

In 1619 the Virginia Company of England made a grant of ten thousand acres of land for "the foundation of a seminary of learning for the English in Virginia," and in the same year the bishops of England, at the suggestion of the king, raised the sum of fifteen hundred pounds for the encouragement of Indian education in connection with the same foundation. A beginning was made toward the occupation of the land, and George Thorpe, a man of high standing in England, came out to be superintendent of the university, but he and three hundred and forty other colonists (including all the tenants of the university) were destroyed by the Indians in the massacre of 1622.

The story of this undertaking is told by Prof. H. B. Adams in the "History of the College of William and Mary," in which also is given an account of the Academia Virginiensis et Oxoniensis, which was to have been founded on an island on the Susquehanna River, granted in 1624 for the founding and maintenance of a university, but was suspended on account of the death of its projector, and of King James I., and the fall of the Virginia Company.

Soon after, in 1636, came the foundation of Harvard,

University, as well as in a certain private library in Baltimore. A full account of this enterprise may be found in Herbert B. Adams's "Thomas Jefferson and the University of Virginia," pp. 21-30, and other records occur in Mordecai's "Richmond in By-gone Days" (2d edition, pp. 198–208), and in Goode's "Virginia Cousins," p. 57.

The building erected for the Academy of Sciences was the meeting-place of the convention of patriots and statesmen who ratified in 1788 the Constitution of the United States, and subsequently was the principal theatre of the city of Richmond.