PLANS FOR THE FUTURE 



(Our Present Buildina not Fireproof) 

 APART from the grave risk to our collections involved in the 

 Ix. fact that our present building is not fireproof, our immediate 

 task is to escape from the congestion caused through lack of accom- 

 modation for our collections and for the students who seek infor- 

 mation from them. We are confronted with the vital necessity of 

 doubling the space of our Museum. A drawing of our new building, 

 designed by Mr. William T. Aldrich of Boston is shown on the 

 opposite page. It may be left to speak for itself. 



Education 



OUR Society, as the reader will have seen, has inherited an 

 important function of leadership in the educational field. 

 Horace Mann, a prominent member of our Society, who, when 

 President of the Senate of Massachusetts, became, in 1837, the first 

 Secretary of the State Education Department, summed up the true 

 nature of Education in words upon the sagacity and insight of which 

 it would be difficult to improve. He said: 



"All intelligent thinkers upon the subject now utterly discard 

 and repudiate the idea that reading and writing, with a knowledge 

 of accounts, constitute education. The lowest claim which any in- 

 telligent man now prefers in its behalf is that its domain extends 

 over the threefold nature of man ; over his body, training it by the 

 systematic and intelligent observation of those benign laws which 

 secure health, impart strength, and prolong life ; over his intellect, 

 invigorating the mind, replenishing it with knowledge, and culti- 

 vating all these tastes which are allied to virtue; over his moral and 

 religious susceptibilities also, dethroning selfishness, enthroning 



