186 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



deavors, as well as to direct wliere iudustries will best flourish ; more 

 advantageous methods of carrying on present enterprises would be 

 established, and our natural resources economized ; as a single illus- 

 tration, the results already reached by the appointment of fish-commis- 

 sioners may be cited. 



But the survey is urged on a still higher ground. The education of 

 its citizens has always been the cherished aim of Massachusetts. There 

 is no society of scientific men within the Hmits of the State, no educa- 

 tional institution, that can do what lies simply within the power of the 

 Commonwealth to effect: namely, to furnish old and young, and 

 especially those receiving a common-school education, with the means 

 of acquiring a precise and thorough knowledge of nature, as manifested 

 in the familiar objects about them. To this end your memorialists urge 

 that the Reports under the proposed survey should, as far as possible, 

 be prepared with special reference to an intelligent use by the people ; 

 and that, instead of being distributed gratuitously, they should be sold 

 through the ordinary agencies at a slight advance upon the cost, so 

 as to enable the State to pay the authors from the proceeds of the 

 sales, and to recover the greater part of its original outlay, without 

 placing the books beyond the reach of persons of moderate means. 

 Such a mode of publication would unquestionably be the most economi- 

 cal for the State, and the most certain to bring the books directly and 

 naturally into the hands of those who would value and use them. 



(Signed), Charles Francis Adams, President. 



JosiAH P. Cooke, Jr., Corresponding Secretary. 



