Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-sjtt6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-23T21:51:56.306Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

7 - REGISTRATION, JUDGEMENT AND REWARD

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 October 2009

Maurice Crosland
Maurice Crosland
Affiliation:
University of Kent, Canterbury
Get access

Summary

It is above all by its Reports that the Academy can exercise great influence over the direction of people's minds in scientific research.

(A.S., Comité secret, 1845–56, p. 124, 2 April 1849.)

The Academy has always reserved for itself the right to establish the laws of science … The Academy is … the implacable enemy of theories [unsupported by good experimental evidence].

(Liebig in private letters to Gerhardt, 1839, 1840, quoted by Schutzenberger, Inauguration du buste de Balard, 1896, pp. 11–12.)

In the old days savants received pensions; today the Academy awards them prizes; this is surely the most noble and precious privilege of our organisation. It would be of interest to research how this patronage of science, which the Academy exercises and which is so extensive and so useful, has developed over the years.

(Fremy's speech at Séance publique, 27 December 1875, C.R., 81 (1875), 1285.)

A registration bureau

Two of the most important functions of the Academy were to receive and to authenticate new scientific information. In addition the Academy was able to offer a whole range of rewards for good work. We will consider first the Academy's function as a registration bureau. It is useful to have in every advanced country a central agency for the collection of scientific information. The Academy fulfilled this function well and indeed, if it had not existed, it might have been necessary to invent it. That is to say that if there had not existed one elite body of scientists at the centre of scientific communication, there would have been a strong case to establish a government agency, probably staffed by civil servants.

Type
Chapter
Information
Science under Control
The French Academy of Sciences 1795–1914
 , pp. 242 - 278
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1992

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×