The National Academy of Sciences The First Hundred Years, 1863-1963 (1978) / Chapter Skim
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5. Postbellum Years and the Crisis within the Academy
5. Postbellum Years and the Crisis within the Academy
Pages 100-133
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From page 100... ...
[I am] far from desiring that it should expire in my arms; but how to preserve its life and render it useful is a different problem.' ["Daily Journal for ~868," January 23, ~868 (Joseph Henry Papers, Smithsonian Institution Archives)
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From page 101... ...
After Henry's Annual Reportfor 1867, no more were published until that for ~878.
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From page 102... ...
Although nowhere stated in its charter, Henry declared, It was implied in the organization of such a body that it should be exclusively composed of men distinguished for original research, and that to be chosen one of its members would be considered a high honor, and consequently a stimulus to scientific labor, and that no one would be elected into it who had not earned the distinction by actual discoveries enlarging the field of human knowledge. Moreover, said Henry, in an association of persons selected on account of their attainments in science, proud of the distinction conferred by such selection, and jealous of the reputation of the society, from which they derive their honor, they will be exceedingly careful to admit no one into fellowship with them of whom a suspicion of fincompetence or pecuniary concern]
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From page 103... ...
Eleven of the incorporators lived into the WOOS; thirteen into the AMOS; and twelve until the last decade. Only three saw the twentieth century: Fairman Rogers living until Woo, Peter Lesley until agog, and Wolcott Gibbs until ~9O8.
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From page 104... ...
Henry, August 26, ~868 ("Harriet Henry, ~825-~878," Smithsonian Institution Archives) ; Henry to Asa Gray, August So, ~868 (Joseph Henry Papers, Smithsonian Institution Archives)
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The petition declared that despite the many services rendered by the Academy to government agencies since its founding, and the savings to the government thus effected, for some years past, though investigations in matters requiring the application of various branches of science have been ordered by the different Departments, the counsel of the Academy has not been asked. ° Simon Newcomb, in Reminiscences of an Astronomer (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., ~903)
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1' Misc. MSS, "National Academy of Sciences," Smithsonian Institution Archives (copy in NAS Archives: Members: I
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From page 107... ...
Draper's academy disbanded a year or two later.~4 The rival academy, and the long-discussed question of the seat of the National Academy, had led Henry the month before to write some of the senior members asking their counsel and telling them of his intention of holding more frequent meetings with the members residing in Washington. He had been reassured by Asa Gray's reply: Fix your National Academy of Sciences, of which you are the worthy head, at Washington, [and]
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From page 108... ...
from Congress" (Joseph Henry Papers, Smithsonian Institution Archives)
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From page 109... ...
I Interestingly, in ~873 Henry ceased to preface the Annual Report of the Smithsonian with his "Programme of Organization," which called for the stimulation of"original researches" as a principal objective of the Institution.
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From page 110... ...
Hoover, reported that the Council, anticipating small attendance, had decided to put over until the meeting of April ~872 business to be transacted "of very great importance" (Hoover to Henry, October lo, ~87 I, in "National Academy of Sciences Records, ~863-~887: NAS, Miscellaneous MSS," Smithsonian Institution Archives)
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25 Smithsonian Institution, Annual Reportfor 1871, pp. 35-37, 364-387; NAS Archives: Committee on Polaris Expedition: ~ 870- ~ 877.
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An Act of Congress, approved July ~ 2, Who, authorized the expedition.26 The Secretary of the Navy issued detailed instructions to Captain Hall, and to those were added an appendix from the National Academy of Sciences outlining the scientific observations that were to be made in the course of the voyage.27 The steamer Polaris, heavily reinforced for sailing in Arctic waters, was outfitted and provisioned for a voyage of several years. The Academy assigned three scientists to gather data and make collections of various kinds.
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From page 113... ...
There the increasingly severe weather, together with pressure from some of the crew, forced Captain Hall to seek refuge in a small bay, which he called Thank God Harbor. In October, Hall made an overland sled trip of extreme hardship, returning to the ship some two weeks later.
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From page 114... ...
The proposal went unheeded, as did others, including one two years later recommending that naturalists accompany an expedition going out to the Yellowstone; a memorial to Congress in 18~6 offering to make a study of the ice fields in the ship lanes off Newfoundland and Labrador; and one proposing another study of American coals.30 Memorials to Congress, and the one or two requests from federal departments each year, were not enough. Although the "Minutes" record full and busy sessions and animated discussions of the scientific papers read at meetings, the lack of response to his efforts greatly troubled Henry, who was trying to hold the Academy together.
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From page 115... ...
. the Coast Survey, the Office of Weights and Measures, the National Observatory, the Nautical Almanac, Patent Office, Engineer Department, Hydrographic Office, Ordnance Department, Medical Departments of the Army and Navy, Lighthouse Board, Signal Corps, Agricultural Department, Bureau of Statistics, Census Members: l.
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From page 116... ...
; Henry's `'Daily Journal for ~868," January 25; "Daily Journal for ~87~," March 6; and his Locked Book, passim (Joseph Henry Papers, Smithsonian Institution Archives)
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From page 117... ...
During the period covered by this report no calls have been made upon the Academy for such service by the Government. Removal of Restriction on Membership On the other hand, he was happy to report on the promising consequences of the recent amending act of Congress that had removed the restriction on membership in the Academy: The enlargement of the Academy has already had a most beneficial effect in stimulating the zeal of younger men in the country who are devoted to scientific results.
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From page 118... ...
37 The list of almost fifty candidates submitted in April ~87~ included incorporators George Engelmann and William Barton Rogers, who, with his brother Robert E Rogers, had been removed from the roll of members in ~866 for nonattendance.
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From page 119... ...
By a vote of ~3 to 9, the amendment was defeated.4t The following day a letter from Benjamin Peirce resigning his membership In the Academy was presented to the business session. The Academy tabled his letter and did not accept it until four years later, but Peirce took no further part in its activities.42 39 Henry to Alexander Agassiz, February 6, ~874 Joseph Henry Papers, Smithsonian Institution Archives)
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From page 120... ...
Whitney had felt that Silliman's much publicized reports had put his position in the State Geological Survey in such jeopardy that he resigned the next year and returned to the East to accept a newly endowed chair in geology at Harvard. Time proved Whitney wrong and Silliman right, but Whitney's continued attacks in the press at last forced Silliman in To to resign all his offices at Yale except the chair of chemistry at the medical school.44 The Silliman-Whitney controversy had contributed to the unrest in the Academy in Who; and, as it continued, Wolcott Gibbs in the spring of ~873 went so far as to say that unless Silliman resigned, "the Academy will break Up."45 At the special meeting of the Academy Council in October ~873, the Council heard Whitney's formal charges, later repeated in the newspapers.
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From page 121... ...
Rogers (ed.) , Life and Letters of William Barton Rogers (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., ~896)
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From page 122... ...
As a friend of Bache and Father I hope you will not allow what they have so hard striven to build up, to pass into oblivion....5~ Alexander Agassiz's appeal had a special poignance, for his father had died on December ~4, ~873, four years after his initial stroke and at a time when he seemed to be enjoying good health and spirits. The passing of the brilliant, colorful, and so frequently controversial Louis Agassiz left a void in the intellectual life of his adopted country.
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From page 123... ...
Mary Lesley wrote her aunt a nostalgic note after attending a scientific meeting in the spring of ~875: "I missed so many of the old faces, Agassiz, Bache, Gould, Peirce, and others. It is six years since I have attended a meeting, and the changes are a little melancholy.
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From page 124... ...
. served as judges at the great exhibition" ("Annual Address, April 1877," Smithsonian Institution Archives)
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From page 125... ...
. with great success." Since the Civil War, geology and paleontology had clearly become the premier research sciences in the nation, and, with the eclipse of the Coast Survey, the Geological Survey became the leading scientific bureau and the most productive agency in the federal government.
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From page 126... ...
P Barnard and William Barton Rogers, the Academy most respectfully declined to entertain any such proposal.60 In his address closing the session, Henry augured well for the Academy and reviewed the high aims he had set for it: Whatever might have been thought as to the success of the Academy when first proposed by the late Prof.
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From page 127... ...
of capital importance to the public welfare" in that century. The other, in ~896, was the organization of a forestry system for the United States.6S The Geological Survey was established as a result of a conflict over 6t an., pp.
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From page 128... ...
Davis that the Academy would be ready to act on the surveys when asked ("Henryana," p. 55, Smithsonian Institution Archives)
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From page 129... ...
, pp. 207, 238; Joseph Henry, "Daily Journal for ~87~," July 8 (Joseph Henry Papers, Smithsonian Institution Archives)
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From page 130... ...
Trowbridge, Professor of Engineering at Columbia University and former member of the Coast Survey; astronomer Simon Newcomb, Director of the Nautical Almanac Office; mining engineer and zoologist Alexander Agassiz; and J
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From page 131... ...
Finally, the Academy report recommended formation of a commission comprising the Commissioner of the Land Office, the Superintendent of the Coast and Geodetic Survey, the Director of the U.S. Geological Survey, the Chief of the Corps of Engineers, and three others appointed by the President to study and report to Congress a standard of classification and valuation of the public lands and a system of land-parceling survey.
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From page 132... ...
After near defeat in its entirety, the bill was only narrowly retrieved; and the major portion—relating to the Geological Survey; abolishment of the Hayden, Powell, and Wheeler surveys; and appointment of a public lands commission—became law on March 3, ~879.76 Two months later Clarence King was appointed Director of the new U.S. Geological Survey, the first great scientific agency in the government directly established through the work of an Academy committee.
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From page 133... ...
The bill that created the Geological Survey in the Department of the Interior also authorized a Bureau of American Ethnology under the direction of the Smithsonian, with its principal function the preservation of knowledge of the culture of the vanishing American Indian. Powell, deeply interested, had sought and obtained direction of that Bureau, and with a single staff was to direct the work of both the Survey and the Bureau from his office in the Smithsonian.
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