82 TJie Zoological Society of Cincinnati. 



guished naturalists, who have labored successfully in their particular 

 departments, but Agassiz, at the time of his death, probably, ranked 

 first among living contemporaries. In conclusion, I have only to 

 remark, that this and other of the sciences, entering as they do into 

 our thoughts, occupations and lives, should, as far as possible, be 

 popularized, by providing liberally for their support and study in all 

 our schools and scientific institutions. 



The Zoological Society of Cincinjiati. 



This organization having become a fixed fact, and the practical 

 realization of its plans in a measure accomplished, we feel sure that 

 all lovers of science will join in acknowledgments to those worthy gen- 

 tlemen, through whose liberality, energy, and public spirit, alldifiiculties 

 in the way of its creation have been overcome, and the foundation laid 

 for a permanent institution, which may, at no distant day, rival the 

 older enterprises of Europe. 



The true way to popularize science, is to bring the objects of scien- 

 tific investigation within the reach of the many, and any enterprise 

 having this for its aim, deserves the cordial good-will and support of 

 the community. Scientific museums, art galleries, industrial expo- 

 sitions, and zoological collections, open to the public on easy terms, 

 do as much, or possibly more, for the education of the people at large, 

 than public libraries. Perhaps it is hardly proper to institute such 

 a comparison, inasmuch as these supplement the schools and libraries 

 in affording an opportunity to verify the results of book-training by 

 actual observation. The mode in which they contribute to the general 

 education of the people, however, is by exciting an interest in the 

 objects of nature, that by reflex action naturally leads the mincl to 

 inquire into the relations of those objects, and the laws by which they 

 are governed. But to the young, who are engaged in the study of 

 science in our schools and colleges, these institutions are of more direct 

 and living importance. They afibrd material for object teaching, 

 which no private or public institution of learning could gather or 

 maintain. Each lesson — each newly acquired fact, is thus stamj)ed 

 upon the mind of youth with a vivid and ineffaceable reality which 

 thenceforth becomes part of the mental constitution. By such modes 

 are to be trained the minds of our youth, if they would be able to 



