seventeenth century literary reunions became very brilliant in France, and exercised a vast influence over literature. From the French coteries England derived her Blue Stocking assemblies which took their rise after the Peace of Paris in 1763.

There are numerous learned societies in other countries of Europe, aud in them, as in France and Italy, the name "academy" is generally used. There were great numbers of literary societies in Germany after the Renaissance. One of the most ancient was established at Heidelberg in 1480, under the title Societas Litteraria Rhenana. It was occupied with Latin, Greek, Hebrew, astronomy, music, poetry, and jurisprudence. Its members found recreation in balls and other festivities. The Collegium Curiosum was founded in 1672 by J. C. Sturm, professor of mathematics and natural philosophy in the University of Altorff, in Franconia. The Royal Academy of Sciences at Berlin was founded by Frederick I in 1700. Its present constitution dates from 1812, and it is divided into four sections, physical, mathematical, philosophical, and historical. The Academy of Sciences at Mannheim dates from 1755; the Electoral Academy at Erfurt from 1754; the Electoral Bavarian Academy of Sciences at Munich from 1759.

The Imperial Academy of Sciences at St. Petersburg was projected by Peter the Great. His inspiration and ideas were drawn from similar institutions which he had seen in other countries. It was chartered in 1724, and several learned foreigners were invited to become members. It received the protection and patronage of Catherine I, of Elizabeth, and also of Catherine II. The last corrected many of its abuses and infused a new vigor and spirit into its researches. The buildings and apparatus of the academy are on a vast scale; it has a fine library of 36,000 curious books and manuscripts, together with an extensive museum which is very rich in native productions.

The Royal Swedish Academy dates from 1793. Linnæus was one of its original members. The Royal Academy of Sciences at Copenhagen dates from 1742; the Royal Spanish Academy at Madrid dates from 1713, and the Academy of Sciences at Madrid from 1774.

Besides academies of this class devoted to literature and sciences in general, there are others that have restricted themselves to narrower fields. Among them may be mentioned the Academy of Herculaneum, which was established in Naples about 1755. Its object was to explain the paintings and other antiquities found at Herculaneum, Pompeii, and other places.

Of academies of medicine and surgery, one of the earliest mentioned was that founded in 1662 by J. L. Bausch, a physician of Leipsic. It was called the Leopoldine Academy. An Italian Academy of Painting and Sculpture was founded at Turin in 1778. The Academy of Architecture of Milan dates from 1380. The Swedish Academy of Fine Arts was founded in Stockholm in 1733. The Russian Academy of Fine Arts at St. Petersburg was established by the Empress Elizabeth (1741-1762)

mond, Va. A large sum was subscribed by the planters of Virginia and by the citizens of Richmond; a building was erected; one professor was appointed, who was commissioned mineralogist in chief and instructed to make natural history collections in Europe and America. The academy was to be national and international, for branches were o be established in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York; the academy was to be affiliated with the royal societies of London, Paris, and Brussels, and with other learned bodies in Europe. It was to be composed of a president, a vice-president, 6 counselors, a treasurer-general, a secretary, a recorder, an agent for taking European subscriptions, French professors, masters, artists in chief attached to the academy, 25 resident and 175 nonresident associates. It promised to communicate a knowledge of the natural products of North America to the Old World and to enrich its collections with specimens of the fauna and flora of the New. It also promised to publish an almanac yearly from its own press in Paris.

But the population of Virginia was too scattering for such a project, and the proposed academy died almost before it was born. The French Revolution crushed also any hopes that its promoters might have had of getting aid from France. The building in Richmond was used as a meeting place for the Virginia convention of 1788 and became, at a later period, a theater.

From the beginning of the century to the time of the civil war there was a slow but steady increase in the number of societies that were founded and lived through the period of infancy. It will be noted that the proportion of these that were national in their design is relatively larger than of the State societies. Among the national societies founded during this period are the American Antiquarian Society, founded in 1812; the National Academy of Design, 1826; the American Statistical Association, 1839; the American Ethnological Society, 1842; the American Oriental Society, 1843; the American Medical Association, 1847; the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1848; the American Geographical Society, and the American Society of Civil Engineers, both founded in 1852. There were, however, a few State societies older than any of the above.

Sources of information: Encyclopædia Britannica, article, Academy, Societies, and Royal Society; American Cyclopædia, article, Academy, Societies; John Addington Symonds, The Renaissance in Italy; Bureau of Education, Report on Public Libraries in the United States; Odd Phases of Literature, article in Irish Quarterly, 6: 439, 647; English Scientific Societies, article by W. Winwood Reade in Galaxy, 3: 732; Scientific Societies, in British Quarterly, 39:86; Works of John Adams; Works of Benjamin Franklin; G. Brown Goode, Origin of Scientific Institutions, in Report of American Historical Association for 1889.

[The Commissioner of Education expresses his thanks to Mr. Appleton Morgan, President of the New York Shakespeare Society, who called his attention to the importance and value of a review of the work of learned and educational societies and collected much of the material found in the following list.]

I. GENERAL SCIENCE.

[Societies occupying themselves with several branches of science, or with science and literature

jointly.] NATIONAL.

AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES.

BOSTON, MASS.

First meeting, May 30, 1780; chartered May 3, 1780.

Object.-"To promote and encourage the knowledge of the antiquities of America and of the natural history of the country, and to determine the uses to which the various natural productions of the country may be applied; to promote and encourage medical discoveries, mathematical disquisitions, philosophical inquiries and experiments; astronomical, meteorological, and geographical observations, and improvements in agriculture, arts, manufactures, and commerce, and, in fine, to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honor, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people."

The founders were 62 persons, including the following officers: James Bowdoin, president; Samuel Cooper, vice-president; Joseph Willard, corresponding secretary; Caleb Gannett, recording secretary; Ebenezer Storer, treasurer; Stephen Sewall, vice-treasurer; James Winthrop, cabinet keeper; councillors: Thomas Cushing, Henry Gardner, John Hancock, Samuel Langdon, John Lowell, Robert Treat Paine, Phillips Payson, James Warren, Edward Wigglesworth, Samuel Williams.

Officers for 1894-95.-Alexander Agassiz, president; Augustus Lowell, vice-president; Charles L. Jackson, corresponding secretary; William Watson, recording secretary; Eliot C. Clarke, treasurer; Henry W. Haynes, librarian. Councillors: William R. Livermore, Benjamin O. Peirce, Benjamin A. Gould, of Class I; Henry P. Walcott, Benjamin L. Robinson, Henry W. Williams, of Class II; Andrew M. Davis, Thomas W. Higginson, James B. Thayer, of Class III. Member of the committee of finance: Augustus Lowell. Rumford committee: John Trowbridge, Erasmus D. Leavitt, Benjamin O. Peirce, Edward C. Pickering, Charles R. Cross, Amos E. Dolbear, Benjamin A. Gould. C. M. Warren committee: Francis H. Storer, Thomas M. Drown, Charles L. Jackson, Samuel Cabot, Henry B. Hill, Leonard P. Kinnicutt, Arthur M. Comey. Committee of publication: Charles L. Jackson, William G. Farlow, Charles G. Loring. Committee on the library: Henry P. Bowditch, Amos E. Dolbear, William R. Livermore. Auditing committee: Henry G. Denny, John C. Ropes.

PUBLICATIONS.

Memoirs, Vols. I-IV, 4 vols., Boston [Charleston, Cambridge], 1785-1821. 4to. new series, Vols. I-XII, No. 1, Cambridge and Boston, 1833-1893. 4to. Proceedings, Vols. I-VIII, 8 vols., Boston and Cambridge, 1818-1873. 8vo. new series, Vols. I-XXI, Boston, 1874-1894. 8vo.

Complete works of Count Rumford, 4 vols., Boston, 1870-1875. 8vo.

Memoir of Sir Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, with notices of his daughter, by George E. Ellis. Published in connection with an edition of Rumford's complete works. Boston, 1871. 8vo.

AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE.

SALEM, MASS.

First meeting held in Philadelphia, September 20, 1818; incorporated under the laws of Massachusetts, April 3, 1874.

"The objects of the association are, by periodical and migratory meetings, to promote intercourse between those who are cultivating science in different parts of America, to give a stronger and more general impulse and more systematic direction to scientific research, and to procure for the labors of scientific men increased facilities and a wider usefulness." (Constitution.)

Incorporators, 1874.-Joseph Henry, of Washington; Benjamin Pierce, of Cambridge; James D. Dana, of New Haven; James Hall, of Albany; Alexis Caswell, of Providence; Stephen Alexander, of Princeton; Isaac Lea, of Philadelphia; F. A. P. Barnard, of New York; John S. Newberry, of Cleveland; B. A. Gould, of Cambridge; T. Sterry Hunt, of Boston; Asa Gray, of Cambridge; J. Lawrence Smith, of Louisville; Joseph Lovering, of Cambridge, and John Le Conte, of Philadelphia.

and annexed to the Academy of Science. It was made a separate institution by Catherine II, who augmented its revenue.

The term "academy" is used on the Continent as a general rule to denote a body organized for the advancement of a common object in the learned world. This is particularly the case in France and Italy, where the academies are all-powerful; but France has "societies" also, among others the Société Géographique, which publishes a well-known bulletin. The Société Asiatique has called into existence Oriental societies in England and Germany. The latter country had in the latter part of the eighteenth century a poets' union (Göttinger Dichterbund or Hainbund) among its societies, with Klopstock at its head. This seems to have been a sort of return to the older idea of the association of literary men, which was seen in the meistersingers, who flourished till the sixteenth century. The guild idea was very prominent in these early poetical associations. Hallam considered them as the prototypes of the Italian academies.

In Germany and the Netherlands societies acquired prominence during the fifteenth century by promoting classical studies. In the seventeenth century bodies were formed in Germany after the manner of the Florentine Accademia della Crusca and the Academie Française for the improvement of the language.

The term "academy," as we have seen, has not been much used in England in the sense in which it is used on the Continent. In England this term is used to designate institutions for the education of young men for the army and navy. Learned societies took their rise in England in the seventeenth century. This association of learned men was due to the influence of Bacon. The Novum Organum and the Advancement of Learning inspired them with the desire of examining the mysteries of nature and of thus freeing themselves from the "logic of the schools." The scientific society as it now exists is prophetically described in the New Atlantis.

The most important of these is the Royal Society. It is also the oldest of the scientific bodies. Its full name is The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, and is devoted to the advancement of mathematical and physical science. The Royal Society is usually considered as dating from 1660, but its nucleus is still older, for as early as 1645, "divers worthy persons, inquisitive into natural philosophy, and other parts of human learning, and particularly of what hath been called the New Philosophy or Experimental Philosophy" were accustomed to meet weekly, and there is little doubt but that this meeting of philosophers is the same as the "Invisible College" of which Boyle speaks in 1646 and 1647. They were also royalists and intrigued for the restoration. They met first at Wadham College, Oxford. Wallis says these meetings were suggested by Theodore Haak, a German then resident in London; that they sometimes held meetings at Dr. Goddard's lodgings in Wood street, London, some

times at Bull-head Tavern in Cheapside, but were often at Gresham College. The first formal meeting of which we have record was held on November 28, 1660, when the Lord Brouncker, Hon. Robert Boyle, Mr. Bruce, Sir Robert Moray, Sir Paul Neile, Dr. Wilkins, Dr. Goddard, Sir William Petty, Mr. Ball, Mr. Rooke, Sir Christopher Wren, and Mr. Hill, assembled at Gresham College to hear a lecture by Mr. Wren. After the lecture was ended they withdrew according to their usual custom for mutual converse, and at that time "something was offered about a designe of founding a college for the promoting of PhysicoMathematicall Experimentall Learning."

It was agreed that the meetings should be continued weekly. Dr. Wilkins was appointed chairman for the time. The King approved the plan of the meetings. Gresham College was to be the meeting place. Sir Robert Moray was chosen president March 6, 1661, and remained until the incorporation of the society, when he was succeeded by Lord Brouncker. July 15, 1662, the society was incorporated as "The Royal Society," but this first charter was modified by a second one in 1663.

These early scientists were not free from superstition. Everything in the shape of a marvel or a monstrosity was grist for their mill. Nothing ever came amiss to them, but they contributed to science, and by the end of the seventeenth century the Royal Society had struck root throughout the world of cultivated mind, for it labored in every region of knowledge.

During its early years one of the main features of the society was the correspondence which was actively maintained with the continental philosophers, and it was from this correspondence that the Philosophical Transactions took its rise. This journal was at first issued in parts, beginning with March 6, 1664-65, and was issued in this form up to 1750 when 46 volumes had been published. From that time the division of the publication into numbers disappears. About 185 volumes have been issued to date.

The society also turned its attention to the formation of a museum, the basis for the same being the collection of rarities which belonged to Mr. Hubbard and the library of the Earl of Arundel. It now possesses some 45,000 volumes of scientific works.

From the time of the presidency of Sir Joseph Banks (1780) there has been a tendency to make the attainment of membership in the Royal Society more difficult than it had been previously. In 1847 a further step was taken in the same direction when the number of candidates for election by the council was limited to 15 and the election was made annual. The Royal Society is a close corporation and membership is very difficult to obtain. The candidate must produce a certificate signed by 6 fellows; he must have invented a machine, discovered a truth, written a book or memoir of merit, distinguished himself in some art or profession, or he must have shown that he was eminent in some particular department of research.