These remarks were given by Jonathan Fanton as an introduction to the Second Annual David M. Rubenstein Lecture with Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor. The lecture was held on Sunday, October 7 as part of the Academy’s 2018 Induction Weekend.

Good morning and welcome to the final session of our Induction Weekend. I now call to order the 2072nd Stated Meeting of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

It has been a wonderful weekend.  I hope you have found it as inspiring as I have.  As you have heard, there are many ways to participate in the life of the Academy. We encourage your active engagement and we would like to hear from each of you in the years ahead.

Our Induction Weekend is an elaborate undertaking, requiring a very precise choreography. I want to take a moment to thank the Academy staff for making the weekend as welcoming, as substantive, and as seamless as possible.  Would the staff who are here please raise your hands so we can recognize your extraordinary efforts?  In particular, I would like to thank Kristin Josti, our events coordinator, who has been your point of contact for the past six months. Kristin has done a terrific job to ensure the weekend’s success.

As the defense attorney for the British soldiers who fired into the crowd of colonists during the Boston Massacre, John Adams, the most prominent Boston lawyer of his era, described what he considered the ideal operation of the legal system: “The law no passion can disturb.” Adams continued, “‘Tis void of desire and fear, lust and anger…[W]ithout any regard to persons, [it] commands that which is good and punishes evil in all, whether rich or poor, high or low.”

As we know, Adams would soon lead a revolution against the very people he was representing when he spoke these words, and his image of justice—objective, impersonal, the same for everyone regardless of financial means or social status—would become an essential aspect of his vision for the new nation. What Adams proposed in his defense was that all persons—angry colonists and frightened soldiers alike—should have equal access to justice.

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These remarks opened the 2018 Induction ceremony of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, in which the 238^th class of new members were welcomed to the Academy. The class included 150 US-based Fellows and 25 International Honorary Members.

Let me add my warm welcome to the Class of 2018, and to your families and friends who have joined us to celebrate this special occasion.

The Academy benefits from the wise and dedicated leadership of its Officers and members of the Academy Board, Council, and Trust.  As a result of their efforts, the American Academy is a thriving institution. We are grateful for all that they do for the Academy, and especially for the leadership and encouragement of our Chair, Nancy Andrews.

The Academy was founded in 1780, during the American Revolution, by John Adams and 62 other scholar-patriots who understood that the new republic would require new institutions to gather knowledge and advance learning in service to the public good. Their determination to create this Academy, at a time of such peril to themselves and their families, is a sign of their confidence in their cause. It is also a testament to their faith in the free exchange of ideas as the basis of a thriving democracy.

In the Preface of the Academy’s first publication, the Memoirs, published in 1785, the Founders reflected upon their brave decision:

“[T]o the honor of our political Fathers be it spoken, that although the country was engaged in a distressing war, a war the most important to the liberties of mankind, that was ever undertaken by any people, and which required the utmost attention of those who were entrusted with our public concerns—they immediately adverted to the usefulness of the design, entered into its spirit, and incorporated a society…to promote most branches of knowledge advantageous to a community.”

Today, as members of the Academy, we preserve this legacy for future generations by working together to fulfill our Charter mission “to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honor, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people.” We do this through our major initiatives to advance scientific research, humanistic inquiry, education, international security, and the vitality of our civic institutions; through our lectures and programming around the country; through our publications including Dædalus; and through our fellowship programs fostering the next generation of scholars.

Members of the Class of 2018, I invite you to join in our current endeavors but also to think about new challenges and opportunities in our quest for a more just, humane, and peaceful world. I look forward to meeting each of you, to hearing your ideas, and to finding new ways to include you in the work of this important fellowship. Once again, congratulations on your election.

These remarks preceded and concluded the Friday, October 5 Celebration of the Arts and Humanities, the first event of the 2018 Induction weekend. 

Welcome

It is wonderful to welcome our new members and to be with so many friends and colleagues.

I would like to acknowledge the Academy Officers and the very dedicated members of our Board, Council, and Trust. The work of the Academy would not be possible without your vision, guidance, and support.

Those of you who are being inducted tomorrow join an institution rich in tradition, but also an institution that is always looking forward, toward the future, to the production of new knowledge and new forms of expression.  Distinctive among learned societies, the American Academy draws together leaders from the sciences, social sciences, arts, and the humanities; from law and medicine; and from business, public affairs, and philanthropy.  By combining the insights of this broad range of disciplines and professions, the Academy offers fresh ideas and new perspectives in its mission to serve the common good.  Each of you is now invited to participate in this important work, to add your particular talents and expertise to a greater cause—in the words of our Charter, to advance “the interest, honor, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people.”

In 1941, the distinguished philosopher and metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead delivered an address to the Academy entitled “Statesmanship and Specialized Learning.” In that address, he praised the wisdom of our founders, who created an organization through which all of the disciplines and professions come together in productive collaboration:

“The comprehension of existence requires the combination of Arts and Sciences. In concrete human action, there is always a Science lurking behind an Art and there is always an Art stimulating a Science. This is the reason why one Academy should include both.”

Over the course of this weekend, we will explore together the ways in which the arts and sciences are combined in this Academy, through our projects, our publications, our programming, and our efforts to connect members from every discipline and profession, from around the country and the world, to share ideas and experiences in service to the public good.

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