of feeling running through it withal, which adds that highest poetic grace and finish-pure rhythmic melody. In the author's next-we say next effort, for assuredly one who so well describes passionate feelings for poetry cannot have exhausted his store at once-we feel certain he will bring greater truthfulness and depth of feeling, a better grounded plan, and thorough comprehension of subject. He will not fail to profit by being told that his orient pearls are not befittingly strung, and that his jewels are out of all proportion in splendor to the casket which they adorn.

SCIENCE IN AMERICA.

It is not many years since Sidney Smith, a reverend gentleman who regarded our countrymen with feelings not very dissimilar to those which it might be pardonable for an orthodox Christian to entertain for the great enemy of mankind, and who not improbably considered the Yankee typus as the last disguise of that many-headed personage, inquired, "Who reads an American book?" We are not certain whether any one was found so bold as to confess the soft impeachment. At any rate, one of the most prominent writers among our trans-Atlantic relatives has very recently thought it desirable to place on record his firm conviction, that neither a great thought, nor a great deed, nor a great man, had originated in America, and that the sole achievement of the republic, thus far, had been, we blush to say what.

Gentlemen like these would probably deem it presumptuous to speak of American Science or scientific men, and it is therefore with becoming diffidence that we would venture in the present article to treat of American Science, or, to speak more properly, of Science in America.

But as the last few weeks have witnessed a gathering, from all the corners of the land, of the devotees of science, there seems no more appropriate topic for the consideration of those who desire to follow the progress of scientific research, than that suggested by the meeting of the American Association for the advancement of Science.

From forest and crowded city, from the mountain and the prairie, from Atlantic and Pacific, gulf and lake, there had assembled a band of men upon the beautiful shores of Erie, as votaries of science, to communicate to one another the results

of their researches, to take counsel together for the promotion of scientific investigation in our country, and by the exchange of views and sympathies to encourage one another in the arduous path which the American scientist is at present called

on to tread.

Let us take the meeting at Cleveland as our text, and from the short history of the Association, and its present aims and influences, let us draw inferences as to the present condition, and auguries as to the future, of Science in America.

The first meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science was held at Philadelphia, in the year 1848. The geologists of the country had some years previously formed an association, the original object of which was the selection and adoption of a uniform system of geological nomenclature, but which subsequently so far enlarged its scope as to assume the name of Association of American Geologists and Naturalists, and to include among its members representatives of numerous departments of natural history. Partly in consequence of the immature scientific development of the country, and in part, perhaps, on account of other influences not necessary to mention, the experiment was not successful; and at the session of 1847, this body voted to dissolve, in order to take part in the organization of a national scientific association upon a larger scale, and to a certain extent similar to the British Association for the advancement of Science, which had existed in England for sixteen years, and had been productive of numerous beneficial results.

Such an association is, evidently, from the nature of our institutions, from the intellectual and physical condition of our country, and from the character of our population, calculated to exert a far wider and more potent influence than could be expected or attained in any other nation.

The earliest congress of the kind was that founded in Switzerland by Gosse, (who conceived the first idea,) Usteri, and Meissner. The first regular session was held at Berne, in 1816. In 1826, through the exertions of the lamented Oken, a similar association, upon a larger scale, was formed in Germany. The example was followed, not many years later, by England, France and the Scandinavian kingdoms; in all with eminent, and in some with brilliant success; so that there remain but few portions of Europe, where science is cultivated, that do not fall within the boundaries of some one of these scientific associations. There is something in the very assembling of men earnestly enlisted in the same cause, deeply imbued with similar tastes, and all striving for the same end, which, like the heaping up of embers, nurses the fire of enthusiasm into a

flame. All experience teaches this. It is true that every successful investigation, every result of careful and laborious research, every scientific discovery, is, and must be, the fruit of solitary thought, or patient application of the individual as a unit. The gleams of truth which are to reward the labors of the man of science, and to light and cheer his path, are not to be struck off as by the contact of flint with steel, nor yet by the friction of similar or dissimilar materials; they resemble rather the celestial fire which is surrendered only to skill, to daring and to power. The heights of heaven are to be scaled, the fire is to be snatched from the eternal altar. There is no making of the rough places smooth, nor the low places high. There is no royal road; the paths are narrow and precipitous. It is eminently the individual who thinks; it is to the one man and not to any association of men that the elegant device, the difficult formula, the abstruse theorem, the great law are revealed. No wide-spread organization, no large association can create genius. The great, the powerful, the illustrious may congregate from all the regions of the earth; but not the crash of worlds can strike out a spark of genius or one ray of thought. But cordial sympathy and a helping hand, the stimulus of emulation and the recompense of applause,-these may be given. As Sir William Hamilton has said,-and who knows better than he?-

"Even in the very silence and solitude of its meditations, genius is essentially sympathetic. It is sensitive to influences from without, and fain would stretch itself abroad and embrace the whole circle of humanity with the strength of a world-grasping love. For 'fame' it has been truly said, 'is love disguised.' The desire of fame is a form of the yearning after love, and the admiration which rewards that desire is but a glorified form of that familiar and every-day love, which binds us in common life to the friends whom we esteem."

The motives which led to the formation of the American Association are, as stated in its Constitution, to promote, by periodical and migratory meetings, the intercourse between those who are cultivating science in different parts of the United States; to give a stronger and more general impulse and a more systematic direction to scientific research in our country, and to procure for the labors of scientific men increased facilities and a wider usefulness.

Twenty years ago, how many Americans busied themselves with original investigation? What countryman of ours ventured out upon the sea of life with only science for his helm, his sails, his anchor-and Truth his only destined haven? In the various classes which composed the community there was no place for the seekers of truth, "the merchants of light;" and had a station been assigned them, there were none to fill it.

A Bowditch must labor at the desk all day that he might find the means of study at night; and must spend two-thirds of his working hours in counting dollars and cents for others, that he might earn enough to publish to the world the truths which his active brain could elicit in the remaining time. A Pickering must drudge over executions and processes, and charters and licenses while the sunlight shone, in order that his midnight oil might illumine the world of letters. Our greatest and most venerable seminaries of learning selected the men who should represent the science of our country, solely with reference to their supposed qualifications for teaching boys the rudiments of learning within the four walls of a recitation-room,-neglecting that higher, that equally important function of a university, the instruction of men beyond its walls, and the dispensation of light to all the world. All this was natural, and perhaps not improper.

"The need that pressed sorest

Was to vanquish the seasons, the ocean, the forest;

To bridle and harness the rivers, the steam,

Making that whirl her mill-wheels, this tug in her team."

The exile on an untrodden shore must look to the earth before he gazes on the stars, except perchance to gather hopefulness. He must seek his food before he writes poetry,must build a house before he carves statues. And the men of America were to be educated for the practical exercise of the professions and of the arts. Their children were to be trained. up to bear an awful responsibility, to demonstrate a mighty theorem. The hopes and the fears of a world were to depend upon the next generation. The enslaver and the enslaved abroad gazed alike in anxious expectation. Well might our fathers feel that the education of their children was preeminently the work to enlist their most earnest attention, their most strenuous efforts. Europe had neither such responsibilities nor such a mission, and the mental energies of her thinkers might be spared for the quest of new truth. American energies were demanded for the maintenance and dissemination of that already attained.

The case stands differently now, in the second half of the nineteenth century. Not only have we a well-educated native population, but the efforts of good men throughout the land are unceasingly directed not only to the elevation of the degraded masses who are pouring in upon us from across the seas, but are devising and carrying out improved methods of instruction and still larger schemes of popular education. God speeds their noble work. It has succeeded hitherto beyond expectation, and the wise and the good are striving on in the

prosecution of the glorious enterprise. Their mission is accomplishing. They are advancing with giant strides toward their goal, and it now remains for America to take the next step in her progress toward the highest civilization.

Not only is that knowledge to be diffused, to which our race has already attained, but knowledge is to be increased as well as disseminated. The earth, the sea, the sky; the everlasting cliffs, the towering pines; the storm and the sunshine; the thunderbolt and the rainbow; the starry host; the beast, the bird, the beetle; the whole external and the vaster internal world are big with mysteries untold. These are to be questioned and cross-questioned till they shall surrender each his secret. Deeper and deeper must the endless abysses of space be penetrated, more and more profoundly the laws of mind and matter be explored, higher and higher must mankind ascend toward a knowledge and a comprehension of the counsels of the Most High.

There is at present in our country a class of men, small and feeble it is true, but gaining day by day in strength and influence, who have dedicated their lives, their faculties, their energies to the pursuit of truth, and to the promotion of all efforts for the advancement and increase of knowledge. It is not yet ten years since the first American youth, however burning with enthusiasm or inspired with hope and faith, dared to dedicate himself all to science, and, without the means of subsistence, to forego the study of a profession or the acquisition of an art, that he might give his youth to the attainment of scientific knowledge to prepare himself for a life of scientific investigation.

The only prospects open to him then were the dim hope of some collegiate professorship, in which the labors of elementary instruction entailed upon him might not be so exhausting as totally to deprive his leisure hours of the intellectual activity requisite for scientific researches,-or some business still less consonant with the habits of mind which his youth had been employed in acquiring. For, to the shame of America it must be confessed, that a man of science, as such, has even at the present day no place in the community, no means of subsistence. A very limited number of positions under the United States Government, together with a few offices of a temporary nature, established for surveys of the resources of individual states, and the direction of a single observatory, make up the total of the positions open to American scientists, in which incumbents fitted for the station would have the means of using all the faculties intrusted them by the Almighty for the benefit of their country and mankind.