Loyola University Maryland Secchi Scientific Society records

The Secchi Scientific Society was organized by Fr. John Ryan in 1893 “to deepen interest in the natural sciences.” Fr. Ryan, in his “Historical Sketch” of Loyola College (circa 1902), says that the Society was organized by the Philosophy (which at the time encompassed the sciences) class in June 1894. The Society’s handwritten constitution and bylaws has the ratification date as June 1893 on the inside cover and June 1894 at the head of the actual text. The Society was named after Angelo Secchi, “a Jesuit astronomer who pioneered the classification of stars by their spectra,” and who taught at Georgetown in the 1840s. Fr. Ryan states the Society’s purpose: “to stimulate a taste for the Natural Sciences in its members and to advance them in various scientific information.” The Society’s constitution states that its objective “is to visit in a body, with advice or in the company of the Professor, places where the students of the Natural Sciences may observe in nature or the arts, illustrations of points of Natural Science learned in class; to hold conversations or oral discussions on subjects of Natural Science, and thus profit by mutual communication of thought, and by the imparting of their lights to one another.” The Society’s activities thus included field trips and programs that involved student papers and exhibitions. It is not apparent when the Society came to an end. The last catalog that lists it among the College’s societies is 1920-1921. That catalog states that “its members hold meetings for the discussion of points of natural science, that contact of mind with mind may be a source of stimulus and improvement. As an aid, visits are paid at stated times to places where illustrations are found in nature or the arts, of points of science learned in class. The members are the students of science classes.” How or why it came to end is not in the archival record, but its demise came around the time when Loyola College moved to its Charles Street campus.

Source: Varga, Nicholas. Baltimore’s Loyola, Loyola’s Baltimore 1851-1986. Baltimore: The Maryland Historical Society, 1990.