42 Boston Society of Natural History 



the past year. The number of applicants for admission to these lec- 

 tures has been four times larger than in any previous period. Over 

 six hundred persons recorded their names as students, while the 

 average attendance on each pleasant day was five hundred. There 

 have been distributed among these students more than one hundred 

 thousand specimens. Yes, during the present year there has actually 

 been given away — not one thousand, or ten thousand, or fifty thou- 

 sand specimens, but (though one can hardly credit it): one hun- 

 dred thousand specimens, all of which may be studied by the 

 teachers at their homes or used for illustration in their schools. 



We talk of the wonders; yet here is a still more felicitous 

 method of communication; six hundred intelligent teachers, going 

 forth from this place to convey the knowledge thus gained to thirty 

 thousand young people, full of life and eager to learn. Thus has this 

 Society become more emphatically than ever before, an educa- 

 tional power in the community. 



Dr. Samuel Eliot, Superintendent of the Boston Public Schools, 

 in his address said : 



"I think, as I stand here, of the scenes that I have looked upon 

 in this and the adjoining building where the teachers in our public 

 schools have gone at the invitation of this Society and through in- 

 dividual genius and the teachings of the friends of this Society have 

 received lessons which they in their turn have given to their children. 

 And when I think of all that this involves of nearness to Nature. 

 which forms so true an essential of education, and which, without 

 such help as this Society has given would be to-day little more than 

 a name among our teachers and pupils, I feel that I have the right, 

 in behalf of the public schools of Boston and of the whole commu- 

 nity, to thank the Society of Natural History for the help which 

 they have given us." 



