THE AGASSIZ ASSOCIATION. 



227 



There has been no attempt in this no- 

 tice to give a comorehensive digest of 

 this nature laboratory. Mere allusion 

 to a few things has been made, leaving 

 description of the enterprise as a whole 

 practically untouched. As president of 

 the Agassiz Association, Dr. P.igelow re- 

 ceives no salary or emolument. On ap- 

 pliances he has invented for the prosecu- 

 tion of nature study he has no patent or 

 rovalty, hence spheres of labor of an hon- 

 orary kind that take much time from the 

 lecture field and literary work (the basis 

 of his livelihood) should be laid out in 

 a manner that will do justice to the lead- 

 ing worker himself and help forward 

 the ereat cause represented. 



Stamford is honored in having' in her 

 midst the leader of The Agassiz Asso- 

 ciation, in that from one of her printing 

 establishments goes forth to the world 

 every month a bright and readable mag- 

 azine, the organ of the Association. 

 The work laid out and defined is to open 

 the eyes of the busy world to the beauty 

 and symmetry of nature around, some- 

 thing absolutely necessary in these days, 

 as a corrective and healthful stimulus in 

 the dull and dailv grind of things. In 

 our townsman. The Agassiz Association 

 has undoubtedly found its man. Let it 

 now give him a showing in a fair oppor- 

 tunity to labor, as becomes the great 

 organization which he represents. 



VALUES THE AGASSIZ ASSOCIATION. 



FROM CHARLES F. HOLDER. C. M. 

 NO. 204 T. 



Pasadena, Caifornia. 

 My Dear Dr. Bigelow : 



I have just returned from a trip to an 

 isolated island off our coast (San Clemente) 

 and find your letter of June 29th. 



The Agassiz Association is certainly to be 

 congratulated in securing your interest and 

 leadership. To my mind there is no edu- 

 cational work going on in the country more 

 valuable and far reaching than this. If it 

 was not for this, a greater part of the work 

 of zoologists (specialists) would never reach 

 the public — the people. I have been famil- 

 iar with the work of the AA since its in- 

 ception, and no society has done so much 

 to interest the masses of the people in 

 nature and nature study and I should con- 

 sider it in the light of a public disaster if 

 this great work should not continue. 



The study of nature in its broadest sense 

 is to my mind an absolute necessity; it is 

 a humanizer, a civilizer, a broadener and 



of the greatest importance to the public. 

 I congratulate you on your work and can 

 see in it great possibilities for the Ameri- 

 can people. Every town and village in this 

 country that has a church should have an 

 Agassiz Chapter. The very name is an in- 

 spiration and a spur to higher education. 

 Wishing you every success, and assuring 

 you of my hearty co-operation in any way 

 you can suggest, I am. 



Very truly yours, 



Chas. F. Holder. 



HOW TO TEACH ONE'S SELF BOTANY. 



BY PROF. CHAS. E. BESSEY, LINCOLN, NEB., 

 CORRESPONDING MEMBER NO. 2OO4, 

 OF AA. 

 The first requisite is a sufficient interest 

 on the part of the learner. If he is not in- 

 terested in knowing about plants, he surely 

 will not undertake to learn botany without 

 a teacher. If one has a good teacher who 

 is full of enthusiasm, the teacher can be 

 depended upon to keep up the necessary 

 enthusiasm, but without a teacher, the pupil 

 himself must bring a sufficient amount of 

 enthusiasm to the task. I should say then 

 that only persons who are already inter- 

 ested naturally in plants should think of 

 taking it up without a teacher. 



In suggesting some helps to such self- 

 teaching, I may say that one of the first re- 

 quisites is to accustom one's self to seeing 

 things. I find that there is a great difference 

 in what people see. Many a time when I take 

 a walk with some of my literary brethren, 

 they profess to be much astonished at the 

 many things which I see while out of doors. 

 This is simply due to the fact that for all 

 my life I have been in the mood to see what 

 is about me out of doors. So, as I walk 

 along, I do not go with unseeing eyes, but 

 as you might say, I commission my eyes to 

 report to me whatever objects strike them. 

 So, I rarely pass by anything of interest. 

 This has gone so far that my wife laughs at 

 my ability to find all sorts of lost things in 

 the grass and along the paths on the prairie 

 or in the woodland. I am not looking for lost 

 pencils or pennies or even silver twenty-five 

 cent pieces, and yet if thev are before me 

 I find them, and so as I walk I see theJittle 

 mosses and tiny fungi as well as the big 

 weeds, the shrubs and the trees. Probably 

 the most important thing to be insisted 

 upon in the self-teaching of botany is just 

 this thing of noticing everything. Of 

 course we call this observation, but I 

 prefer to call it merely seeing things. If 

 you want to teach yourself to know a good 

 many plants keep your eyes open, even 

 though you are walking with a friend who 

 is talking to you on some entirely different 

 subject. I find that I can commission my 

 eyes to report to me whatever they see 

 while at the same time I keep up a lively 

 conversation on some entirely different sub- 

 ject. 



