NEED OF A FUND. 153 



Now, one thing our Association ought to do in the 

 near future is to secure control of one or more tables 

 in this and other thoroughly equipped laboratories, 

 and place them year by year freely at the disposal of 

 such of our number as may show themselves worthy. 

 May we not in time hope to establish here and there 

 laboratories of our own, manned by our own pro- 

 fessors ? 



We wish also to establish courses of study with 

 greater regularity, and of wider range. I should like 

 to see a yearly correspondence course in each of the 

 branches of natural science, conducted by the best 

 teachers of America. I should wish these courses, 

 specimens included, to be absolutely free ; and I 

 should wish the men who give them well paid for their 

 time and work. 



At present, as we depend entirely upon volunteers, 

 our courses, though frequent, are rather desultory, and 

 accompanied with some slight expense for specimens 

 and printing. To do all we hope to do will cost much 

 money, and the money must be raised. The Agassiz 

 Association must be endowed, and the money will 

 come, as time and devoted labor have long since come. 

 There are plenty of wealthy men and women ready 

 to give money as soon as we can prove that it can be 

 given safely, worthily and well. Now, here we have a 

 school of more than ten thousand pupils, confined to 

 no one city, no one State, no one denomination. We 

 have a corps of fifty volunteer instructors. We need 

 no expensive buildings. And if we find that in order 

 to meet the needs of our maturing membership 

 we need a fund of ten or twenty or fifty thousand 

 dollars, whose income shall be applied to giving 

 worthy young men and women a chance to work under 

 competent instruction, I have faith to believe that 

 some man will be found deep enough in pocket, and 



