4 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ILLINOIS 



great book of Nature open before them, and all feel that there is very 

 much to be learned from its glowing pages. Some truths have been 

 mastered, some problems have been solved ; but there are many mysteries 

 unexplained, and depths of meaning not yet fathomed. It is the busi- 

 ness, as well as pleasure, of this body to investigate and study, and I can 

 assure you these students need not the schoolmaster's rod to stir them to 

 their duty. There is interest in it. Pleasure and profit combine to 

 stimulate diligent and persevering effort. 



Again. Your students expect to become teachers ; they are prepar- 

 ing themselves for that purpose. So these students, the members of this 

 Society, are, and are to be, teachers. Whether they choose to do so or 

 not they must teach by precept and example. You will bear me witness 

 that I do not flatter when I say that this teaching has been in the past 

 and will be in the future eminently successful. They are good teachers, 

 because live teachers, because they work with keen personal interest and 

 heart-felt enthusiasm. 



I will not prolong these remarks, though I feel there is much that 

 might be said by one well acquainted with the flowers of rhetoric. I 

 hope our meeting may prove interesting to you and the members of 

 your great and noble institution. I am heartily glad that it may be said 

 with truth that the members of the State Horticultural Society are warm 

 friends of the State Normal University. Our studies are different, but 

 they do not conflict ; our labors take different directions, but they tend 

 to the same end — the upbuilding of the State, and the intellectual, 

 social and moral welfare of the people which compose it. 



REPORT OF SECRETARY. 



Mr. President and Fellow Members : 



In presenting my special report for the fiscal year of December 9, 

 1878, to December 8, 1879, allow me to congratulate you upon the 

 continued and increasing interest in the work of our Society, which is 

 manifested in the demand for copies of its transactions. Officers of 

 sister societies, of public libraries, of colleges and institutions of learning, 

 and superintendents of public instruction, not only of our own State but 

 of surrounding States, have solicited copies, and upon their receipt 

 expressed appreciation of their value. In accordance with instructions of 

 the Executive Board I have distributed among the county superintend- 

 ents of the State, upon their request, about four hundred and fifty copies, 

 consisting of volumes 10, 11, 12, for the use of district-school libraries in 

 their respective counties. 



The reports from the various committees will better place before you 

 the status of horticulture in our State than your Secretary can do. 



