1. Chenu, M. D., Nature, Man and Society in the Twelfth Century Essays on New Theological Perspectives in the Latin West (Chicago and London, 1968) [1957), pp. 38–40, 40, n. 87, 43–44.Google Scholar

2. Science as defined in Samuel Johnson's dictionary (1755) meant: “1. Knowledge. 2. Certainty grounded in demonstration. 3. Art attained by precepts or built on principles. 4. Any art or species of knowledge. 5. One of the seven liberal arts.” Its modern connotation as a body of cumulative knowledge verifiable by experiment came much later. See Thackray, Arnold, “The Industrial Revolution And The Image Of Science,” in Science And Values Patterns of Tradition and Change, ed., Thackray, Arnold and Mendelsohn, Everett (New York, 1974), pp. 3–4.Google Scholar

3. Philosophy, Technology and the Arts in the Early Modern Era, trans. Attanasio, Salvator and edited by Nelson, Benjamin (New York, 1970), p. ix. See also Rupert Hall, A., “What did the Industrial Revolution in Britain owe to Science?” in McKendrick, Neil, ed., Historical Perspectives Studies in English Thought and Society (London, 1974), p. 133. The reasons for the shift in attitude toward labor from contempt characteristic of the middle ages to respect for the mechanic still needs clarification. See Thomas, Keith, “Work and Leisure in Pre-Industrial Society,” Past and Present, No. 29 (December 1964): 55ff.Google Scholar

4. Foner, Eric, Tom Paine and the American Revolution (New York, 1976), p. 116.Google Scholar

5. Oleson, Alexander and Brown, Sanborn C., ed., The Pursuit of Knowledge in the Early American Republic (Baltimore, 1976), p. xxi, and essays, passim .Google Scholar

6. Faler, Paul Gustaf, “Workingmen, Mechanics and Social Change: Lynn, Massachusetts, 1800–1860,” (Ph.D. University of Wisconsin, 1971), pp. 196–97.Google Scholar

7. Washington was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court under Marshall. Dictionary of American Biography, 10 (1936), pp. 508–509.Google Scholar

8. Martin, Edward, Jefferson as Scientist (New York, 1952), cited in Daniels, George H., Science in American Society: A Social History (New York, 1971), pp. 102–103; Meier, Hugo A., “Technology and Democracy, 1800–1860,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 43 (March 1960): 636; Washington to Thomas Ewell, cited in Greene, John C., “Science and the Public in the Age of Jefferson,” Isis (1958): 17. For similar sentiments reflecting this widely held perception that science must be applied to “the common purposes of life”, see Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, I (1771), cited in Beaver, Donald De B., “Altruism, Patriotism and Science: Scientific Journals in the Early Republic,” American Studies, 12 (1971): 10.Google Scholar

9. Similar patterns in a somewhat sharper outline were to be observed in England. As put succintly by Shapin, Steven: “Natural knowledge and the institutions in which it was fostered during the Industrial Revolution came to serve the social function of providing an entree into culture for groups barred from or hostile towards more traditional pursuits and institutions. Science could and did appeal to legions of the ascendant industrial, commercial and professional middle-classes who, because of religion, social origin, wealth, or personal disposition, were excluded from the traditional socializing influences of Oxford, Cambridge, and other lairs of polite learning.” “Prosopography As A Research Tool In History of Science: The British Scientific Community, 1700–1900,” History of Science, 12 (1974): 7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10. The “arts” in the early nineteenth century still carried the broader connotations with manufactures and the products of the artisan and craftsman — what today would be considered technology and applied science.Google Scholar

11. Gibbs, F. W., “Itinerant Lecturers in Natural Philosophy,” Ambix, 8 (1960): 111–17; Foner, Eric, Paine, pp. 6–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12. For a recent systematic treatment of this question see Hirschman, Albert O., The Passions And The Interests: Political Arguments For Capitalism Before Its Triumph (Princeton, 1977).Google Scholar

13. Quoted in Beaver, , “Altruism, Patriotism and Science:” 11. The American Institute of Instruction at its meetings featured a number of lectures on the relationship of science to order. Channing, Walter, “On the Moral Uses of the Study of Natural History”, Lectures and Proceedings, 4 (1834): 250–77; Pierpont, John, “On the Moral Influence of Physical Science”, I (1831): 93; Jackson, C. T., “On the History and Uses of Chemistry”, 4 (1833): 233; Gould, A. A., “On the Introduction of Natural History as a Study in Common Schools”, Annals of Education, 5 (April 1835): 248.Google Scholar

14. The notion that science and religion were at war in nineteenth century America has been thoroughly discredited. For the two most recent books on the subject see Bozeman, Theodore Dwight, Protestants in an Age of Science: The Baconian Ideal and Antebellum American Religious Thought (Chapel Hill, 1977) and Hovenkamp, Herbert, Science and Religion in America, 1800–1860 (Philadelphia, 1978).Google Scholar

15. Kelley, Robert, “Ideology and Political Culture from Jefferson to Nixon”, American Historical Review, 82 (June 1977): 536–38.Google Scholar

16. Bender, Thomas, Community and Social Change in America (New Jersey, 1978), p. 77; by the same author, “Science and the Culture of American Communities: The Nineteenth Century,” History of Education Quarterly, 16 (Spring 1976): 63–77.Google Scholar

17. Stout, Harry S., “Religion, Communications, and the Ideological Origins of the American Revolution”, William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd series, 34 (October 1977): 527–30.Google Scholar

18. A major seminal influence on this literature is Ong's, Walter Rhetoric, Romance, and Technology: Studies in the Interaction of Expression and Culture (Ithaca, New York, 1971). See also Isaac, Rhys, “Dramatizing the Ideology of Revolution: Popular Mobilization in Virginia, 1774 to 1776”, William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd series, 33 (July 1976): 357–85; Laqueur, Thomas, “The Cultural Origins of Popular Literacy in England. 1500–1800,” Oxford Review of Education, 2 (1976): 255–75. For an interesting argument that modifies the conflict thesis between oral and print cultures see Hall, David D., “The World of Print and Collective Mentality in Seventeenth-Century New England,” in Higham, John and Conkin, Paul K., eds., New Directions in American Intellectual History (Baltimore, 1979), pp. 166–80.Google Scholar

19. This need for a new consensus was felt much more urgently in England where class divisions in the early nineteenth century were so much wider. The A.R.Y.U. in 1861 stated that mechanics' institutes “…afford an admirable common ground whereon the rich and the poor, the educated and the ignorant might meet, might learn to understand each other better, and perhaps to respect each other more. The greatest social evil of the present day is the isolation between the employer and the employed. Indifference to each others' interests is the normal condition of their relation and active hostility in the form of strikes has of late years become a painfully frequent feature of the time.” Quoted in Harrison, J. F. C., Learning and Living, 1790–1960. A Study in the History of the English Adult Education Movement (London, 1961), pp. 75–76. See also Bennett, Charles A., History of Manual and Industrial Education Up to 1870 (Peoria, Illinois, 1926), pp. 333, 335, Tyrell, A., “Political Economy: Scotland,” Scottish Historical Review, 48 (October 1969): 155–58.Google Scholar

20. American Journal of Education, I, no. ix (September 1826): 554; Daniels, George, American Science in the Age of Jackson (New York, 1968), p. 49.Google Scholar

21. The whole subject of mechanics' institutes in the United States is still a very much neglected area. The best study and a model for future studies is Sinclair, Bruce, Philadelphia's Philosopher Mechanics: A History of the Franklin Institute 1824–1865 (Baltimore and London, 1974). See also: Horlick, Allan S., Country Boys and Merchant Princes: The Social Control of Young Men in New York (Lewisburg, Pa., 1975).Google Scholar

22. Griscom, John (1774–1852) was a Quaker who taught at the Friends' School in Burlington, New Jersey. It was there he first began to teach chemistry. Later he became Professor of Chemistry at Columbia College, New York. Charles Willson Peale (1741–1827) worked at his trade as a saddler for a number of years, then turned to portrait painting when debts forced him out of business. He got his idea for a museum when friends suggested he turn his gallery into a “repository of natural curiosities.” Dictionary of American Biography, IV (1932), 6–7; VII (1934), pp. 344–47.Google Scholar

23. Reingold, Nathan et al., The Papers of Joseph Henry, I (Washington, D.C., 1972), p. 182, n. 4. Wallace, Anthony F. C., Rockdale (New York, 1978), pp. 215–16; Sellers, Charles Coleman, Peale's Museum, Seventeen Eighty Four-Eighteen Fifty Four: Science, Art & Adventure in the Afterglow of the American Revolution (New York 1979). See also Greene, John C., “Science and the Public in the Age of Jefferson” 21. For a general survey of early popularizers of science see Miles, Wyndham D., “Public Lectures on Chemistry in the United States”, Ambix, 15 (October 1968): 129–53.Google Scholar

24. A cultivator was a person who possessed “learned” culture, had a serious interest in science and its applications but was not yet a professional scientist. See Reingold, Nathan, “Definitions and Speculations: The Professionalization of Science in America in the Nineteenth Century”, in Oleson, and Brown, , The Pursuit of Knowledge, pp. 32–46.Google Scholar

25. Jones, had been a professor of natural philosophy and chemistry at the College of William and Mary. He was a popular lecturer on science in the Philadelphia area and at Peak's museum in this period. For a time he conducted a school in Oxford, North Carolina, then returned to Philadelphia to edit the Franklin Institute Journal . Sinclair, , Philosopher Mechanics, pp. 9–10, 54–55.Google Scholar

26. Journal of the Franklin Institute, I (January 1826): iii–iv, 1–2; Elliott, Arlene, “The Development of the Mechanics' Institutes and Their Influence Upon the Field of Engineering: Pennsylvania, a Case Study, 1824–1860,” (Ph.D., University of Southern California, 1972), p. 43; Sinclair Philosopher Mechanics, pp. 195–97.Google Scholar

27. Journal of the Franklin Institute, 3 (January 1827): 42; Sinclair, , Philosopher Mechanics pp. 47–48.Google Scholar

28. Sinclair, , Philosopher Mechanics, p. 196. The Journal's Committee on Publications opposed Jones' emphasis on artisan improvement, and, in 1836, reorganized the Journal and turned it into a technical scientific publication limited to professionals. Ibid., p. 212.Google Scholar

29. Mitchell was a professor of chemistry at the Franklin Institute. He did a great deal of writing in the field of medicine. Ibid., p. 114, n. 13.Google Scholar

30. Journal of the Franklin Institute, 14 (August 1834): 94–108.Google Scholar

31. Sinclair, , Philosopher Mechanics, p. 5; Sinclair, Bruce, “Science, Technology and the Franklin Institute,” in Oleson, and Brown, , The Pursuit of Knowledge, p. 194.Google Scholar

32. Merrick was one of the founders of the Franklin Institute and later became the first president of the Pennsylvania Railroad.Google Scholar

33. Sinclair, , “Science, Technology and the Franklin Institute,” p. 198. See also Philosopher Mechanics, Ch. 6.Google Scholar

34. Wallace, Anthony F. C., Rockdale, pp. 238–39. I owe much for this section to Wallace's brilliant treatment of mechanician communities.Google Scholar

35. Reingold, , Henry, II (1975), p. 182, n. 4; Greene, John C., “Science and the Public in the Age of Jefferson:” 21; Daniels, George H., American Science in the Age of Jackson p. 40.Google Scholar

36. This was the phrase used by Abbott, Frances E., a member of the Metaphysical Club that included the founders of pragmatism, Peirce, Charles and James, William. Haskell, Thomas L., The Emergence of Professional Social Science: The American Social Science Association And the Nineteenth-Century Crisis of Authority (Urbana, Ill., 1976), p. 66, n. 4.Google Scholar

37. Ezrahi, Yaron, “The Authority of Science in Politics,” in Science and Values: Patterns of Tradition and Change, ed. by Thackray, Arnold and Mendelsohn, Everett (New York, 1974), pp. 224–25; Kohlstedt, Sally Gregory, The Formation of the American Scientific Community: The American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1848–1869 (Urbana, Ill., 1976), p. 131; Daniels, George, “The Process of Professionalization in American Science: The Emergent Period, 1820–1860,” Isis, 58 (Summer 1967), pp. 156–57; Daniels, George, Science in American Society p. 169; Haskell, , The Emergence of Professional Social Science, pp. 66–67.Google Scholar

38. Ezrahi, , “The Authority of Science in Politics,” p. 217–19.Google Scholar

39. Bache was a graduate of West Point, became a member of the faculty for one year, and after two years with the Army's scientific corps, came to Philadelphia in 1828 to teach natural philosophy and chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania. Bache's career is closely connected to the professionalization of science in America. Sinclair, Bruce, Philosopher Mechanics, pp. 149–51.Google Scholar

40. Wistar, Caspar (1761–1818) was a Quaker physician and Professor of Anatomy at the University of Pennsylvania. The British traveler, Hamilton, Thomas, made some very interesting observations about these parties: “These parties bring together men of different pursuits, and promote the free interchange of opinion, always useful for the correction of prejudice. Such intercourse, too, prevents the narrowness of thought, and exaggerated estimate of the value of our own peculiar acquirements, which devotion to one exclusive object is apt to engender in those who do not mix freely with the world.Google Scholar

These meetings are held by rotation at the houses of the different members. The conversation is generally literary or scientific, and as the party is usually very large, it can be varied at pleasure. Philosophers eat like other men, and the precaution of an excellent supper is by no means found to be superfluous. It acts too as a gentle emollient on the acrimony of debate. No man can say a harsh thing with his mouth full of turkey, and disputants forget their differences in unity of enjoyment.Google Scholar

At these parties I met several ingenious men of a class something below that of the ordinary members. When any operative mechanic attracts notice by his zeal for improvement in any branch of science, he is almost uniformly invited to the Wistar meetings. The advantage of this policy is obviously very great. A modest and deserving man is brought into notice. His errors are corrected, his ardour is stimulated, his taste improved. A healthy connexion is kept up between the different classes of society and the feeling of mutual sympathy is duly cherished. During my stay in Philadelphia I was present at several of these Wistar meetings, and always returned from them with increased conviction of their beneficial tendency.” Men and Manners in America, two vols. in one (1833); (reprint ed., New York 1968), I, pp. 340–43, quoted in Reingold, , Henry II (1975), pp. 110–111.Google Scholar

41. This influence can be traced in the following: Wilson Smith, E., Professors and Public Ethics: Studies of Northern Moral Philosophers Before the Civil War (Ithaca 1956); Meyer, Donald, “The American Moralists: Academic Moral Philosphers in the United States, 1830–1880” (Ph.D., University of California: Berkeley, 1967); Howe, Daniel Walker, The Unitarian Conscience: Harvard Moral Philosophy, 1805–1861 (Cambridge, Mass., 1970).Google Scholar

42. Davie, George E., “The Social Significance of the Scottish Philosophy of Common Sense,” (The Dow Lecture: University of Dundee, November 30, 1972 [pub. 1973], pp. 6–8; see also his The Democratic Intellect: Scotland and Her Universities in the Nineteenth Century (Edinburgh, 1961); Shapin, Steven, “The Audience for Science In Eighteenth Century Edinburgh,” History of Science, 12 (1974): 95–121; Chitnis, Amand C., The Scottish Enlightenment: A Social History (Totowa, New Jersey, 1976).Google Scholar

43. Introductory Lectures on Chemistry” [January-March 1832], in Reingold, , Henry, I (1972), pp. 383–95. Reingold conjectures that Henry probably resented the prestige of mechanics and inventors in the nineteenth century and the relatively lowly place of the scientist. The relationship of science to technology is still one of the unresolved problems in the history of science. See also Layton, Edwin T. Jr., “Technology As Knowledge,” Technology and Culture, 15 (January 1974): 31–41.Google Scholar

44. The American Journal of Education, I (August 1855): 17–31.Google Scholar