When last year I faced the necessity of preparing a presidential address for the South Dakota Academy of Science my plan was to prepare a paper on "Science in Service of the State." The postponement of the Deadwood meeting made it impossible for me to carry out the plan. I succeeded in persuading Professor Hutton of State College to address us on the subject of " science Academies and Their Work." Professor Hutton’s paper will make it unnecessary for my to take you tie in discussing this.

The annual presidential address of the academy should, I feel, come to be a learned and serious discussion of some one of the vital problems of science. Our academy is so new that we have not as yet solved the problems of organization. It seems to be fitter, therefore, that I should with you hastily review the past, examine our present status and plan for our future.

Three years ago when I first attended a meeting of the South Dakota State Teacher's Association I was impressed by the total lack of any sort of organization among the science teachers of the state, either within or without the State Teacher's Association. I had just come from a sister state where we had both a Science Sections of the Teacher’s Association, which was composed almost wholly of the science teachers of the secondary schools of the state and also a very active Academy of Science, which I helped to organize three years before. It seemed that we should have some sort of organization in the state and so two years ago, before the State Meeting in Sioux Falls. I sent out a circular letter urging the science teachers of the state to meet in Sioux Falls and help organize in some way. My original thought was that probably a science section in the State Association would beet the need better than a State Academy. With the cooperation of Prof. Charles D. Poore, whose absence today I keenly regret, we had quite a satisfactory program at our organization meeting.

At this organization meeting, greatly to my surprise, and tho several of us spoke against it, the great majority voted in favor of the organization of an Academy of Science. In accordance with our instruction s, the officers arranged a good program for the Deadwood meeting but at the request of nearly every one on the program it was called off at the eleventh hour.

There have been a few great hermit scientists, but that was in the past. I know of no first rate ones who still survive. The stimulus that comes from mental intercourse with men who know and have the scientific spirit we certainly need if we are to do work that is really of value. The pall of this country to me has always been the interminable stretch of miles that lay between me and anyone else that know enough of the problems I was working on to appreciate what I was trying to do or to sympathize. Scientist work for appreciation more then money and I find that is the very thing at is generally lacking in most of the schools of the state. Those in authority thing that the function of the teacher is first to meet his classes, and then if and time remains to spend this in extraneous matters around the school. If the teacher attempts to give any time to original research, he is pat soon to receive a hint that this is not what he is hired for. When a man finds that the original work that he is trying to do is not appreciated or desired he is very apt to cease the struggle. The first function of an academy like this is to furnish to the science teachers of the state just this association with appreciative souls that they need if they are to continue to do any sort of research work. We have in South Dakota over a hundred scientists who ought to be doing some sort of research work. I venture that there are scarcely a dozen men in the state who are now doing any research work worthy of the name. This is an inestimable loss to the state, not only in the results that other men might achieve, but even more, if possible, the loss of their work as teachers. Prolonged isolation and lack of initiative produce stagnation and mental atrophy. No man can remain a live, virile teacher of science for long who does not do some original research work along the line of this interest. Few men do good research work without outside stimulus. They mentally run down. To break down isolation and stimulate research is the second great function of the academy like ours.

I have never seen a place where the field for research were so ripe and the call to do original research so loud and where the laborers were so few.  We have here opportunity to do all the theoretical work that any schools have anywhere.  But the great call is to do real things immediate things, thing that the whole state cries out to have done.  We have in South Dakota growing wild on our prairies the largest quantities of echinacea that any state possesses.  The fluid extract of this herb sells for ten dollars  a gallon.  andy yet as far as I know there is only on man in the state who has ever done anything with it, and he has simply dug it and shipped it to India.  The extractives of this root, which are the valuable portion, could by cultivation without doubt be increased as much as had the sugar content in the sugar beet.  And there is no place in the world better suited to raise this than the arid plains of South Dakota, its native habitat.  In the same dry region grows the far famed buffalo grass which weight for weight exceeds in fattening power any other grass known to man.  What might not be accomplished here if a good horticulturist and chemist would work together on the problem?  I firmly believe there could be produced a grass as rich as the present buffalo grass yielding many times the quantity per acre.  The primary problems of South Dakota are agricultural and the arid region west of the river stands to us all as a challenge.  South Dakota imports ever year several million tons of soft coal and we have unexploited fields of lignite almost as great in fuel value which remains untouched.  We have one of the finest building stones in the world in our Sioux Falls quartzite, and yet the chemical and physical properties of this stone remain all but unknown.  South Dakota has more different kinds of mineral and more of each kind in the Black Hills than in any other similar section on earth.  And yet its wealth, especially of the rate elements, remains practically unexplored.

The South Dakota call is to real work with real thing-to solve the bread and butter problems of a state.  And yet in the face of this call to develop the material, physical and agricultural resources and work out a system of practical co-operation, so many in our schools spend all their time in the field of words and talk about "the higher life," "greater outlook," "deeper insight," and "broader culture, and not content to talk, attempt to graft the laissez faire culture of the outgrown, overdone, effete East upon the forward-looking life of the young West.  The man of science, then men who do, have been so busy with their tasks that the men who bandy words have passed us in organization, and not actually harass our labors by proselyting from our forces young men who instead of wasting time over dramatic interpretation should be serving in the army of the common good -trying to make tow ears of corn grow where one grew before.

Surely in the presence of this call to serve when the tasks exceed the ready hands score-fold, we scientists should be banded together as brothers and friends, presenting a solid from against the unknown and unknowing.  There should be no rivalry among us here except that noble rivalry or emulation who best can serve.

If we are to accomplish these ideals of fellowship, inspiration, and cooperation, we must have a definite membership which should include all men in the state who do research work and employ the scientific method  whether they work in the fields of pure or applied science of matter of mind,-psychologists, educators, agriculturists, as well as the chemists, physicist, and men in biology.  We must have a committee on membership who will put time and energy in to the work.  I  would suggest that we make provision for charter members and include all those whose names are received before March 1.

The success of this academy will depend upon the secretary more then upon other individuals.  He should be chairman of the committee on program.  I feel that our meeting next year should occupy certainly two full days.  The committee on program should get in touch with the research workers i the state and see that we have not only a large number of original papers to present, but also that as far as possible these researches shall be along line which are not immediate, practical importance, which have, if possible, a dollars and cents value.  Not that I believe that research in the fields of pure science is of less value, far from that, but just now while we are trying to get on our feet, I would urge the practical research.  I do this for the reason; If our academy is really to become a permanent fixture and a permanent good in the state, it must receive from the legislature an annual grant sufficient to publish the proceedings of the society.  We must have a committee appointed to bring this matter before the legislature when it convenes.  If we can obtain the grant the first tie, it will be much easier in the future.&nbs p; Those of you who know the character of the South Dakota Legislature must understand what an advantage it would be for the committee to have a considerabl e body of practical contributions to present for their consideration.

We have no general science museum worthy of the name in the state.  I think that we should have appointed a committee on museum that should get in contact with the various institutions in the state and be prepared to report at our next meeting exactly what concessions we could obtain from the several schools, provided we should locate our Academy of Science Museum with them.  As soon as the museum is located, of course, curators for it should be appointed.

In order that we might effect at this meeting actual organization of our academy.  I have already appointed a committee on constitution as I was instructed to do.  I have appointed Prof. J. G. Hutton, State College, chairman, and Dr. O. R. Overman of huron State College and Dr. E. A. Faith, president of Redfield College, as the other two members.  They have already had several sessions and will be ready to report at your business meeting this afternoon.  We should have a committee on recommendations, and on this committee I will appoint Prof. A. B. Carr, Springfield State Normal, chairman, and Prof. O. B. Poore, N.N.I.S., L. N. Willis, as the other two members.  I must appoint a committee on nominations and on this committee I appoint Prof. L. G. Atherton of Madison Normal school and Dr. A. N. Hume, State Agronomist, State College, as the other two members.  The newly elected president it seems to me should appoint a committee on membership,  another to present our claims before the state legislature, and a third to investigate and report upon the matter of an Academy of Science museum.