During the 1840s is when science first really became a professional field within the United States. Before then, within the first few decades of US independence, there was a community of scientists that were like scholars who performed, investigated, and experimented with the natural sciences for academic pursuits. Groups formed such as the Advancement of Science and the American Medical Association where science began to grow outwards in public consciousness from academic specialty to a broader scope of general understanding. This can be seen in the influx of famous scientific figures at the time such as Charles Darwins, Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, and Louis Pasteur who discovered evolution through natural selection, invented many commercial electric products that revolutionized daily life, invented the first practical telephone which resulted in a massive boon in communication, and the biological advancement in vaccination and pasteurization which saved innumerable lives since it's discovery and application, respectively. This early period of scientific advancement is described by many to be "heroic" due to these men achieving the seemingly impossible at the time. This heroic period bleeds back into the education, as brilliant professors began teaching in colleges not specifically designated for science like Polytechnic College about Chemistry, Biology, Mathematics, Astronomy, Geology, and Physics. While limited, this era shows the enthusiasm to carry out scientific education for the later years.