Bulletin (No. 101) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: arts and manufactures, and closing with the general clause "any other information which may be deemed of general utility." In the extensive and diversified task which the Institute had thus set for itself, one may almost feel certain of the responsibility of Thomas Law for most of the ideas that were incorporated in this section of the constitution, as they follow the thought so constantly expressed in his innumerable and valuable communications, mainly devoted to schemes for benefiting mankind. The first expressed objects of the Institute as a whole were, in fact, such as required the resources of the Nation or of the several States for their consummation, and anticipated the work which has since and only too slowly forced its attention on legislators. These objects received recognition from Congress by an act of incorporation, and, in addition, to the extent of granting the use of land for a botanic garden and of a room for the collections, but no funds were ever appropriated for helping out any of the praiseworthy measures proposed by the Institute. The constitutional ordinance of 1820, without abrogating any of the original objects, divided the Institute into five classes, the mathematical, physical, and moral and political sciences, general literature and the fine arts. The principal idea in this action, with the requirement that every member should affiliate himself with one or other of the classes, was to give each member something definite to do, and thereby increase his interest in the society and induce his more frequent attendance at meetings. The organization thus effected was also more indicative of the purposes of a learned society, and might also be expected to attract a larger membership, considering the character of material to be drawn upon in Washington at...