30. ACADEMY A National.—
I have often wished we could have a Philosophical
Society, or Academy, so organized as that
while the central academy should be at the
seat of government, its members dispersed
over the States, should constitute filiated
academies in each State, publish their communications,
from which the Central Academy
should select unpublished what should
be most choice. In this way all the members,
wheresoever dispersed, might be brought into
action, and an useful emulation might arise
between the filiated societies. Perhaps the
great societies, now existing, might incorporate
themselves in this way with the National
one.
To Joel Barlow.
Ford ed., viii, 424.
(Feb. 1806)
