18 BULLETIN OF THE ESSEX INSTITUTE. 



that local topics like our own history and traditions, like 

 our own botany and geology and mineralogy and ento- 

 mology, must be taught and mastered by ourselves, or else 

 lost sight of in the absorbing interests of the greater world 

 at large, they decreed that, so far as in them lay, no young 

 enthusiast should be without a Mentor if he had time and 

 thought and energy to devote to these pursuits in Essex 

 County. The numbers of scholars holding conspicuous 

 rank in natural science to-day, who gladly own a debt of 

 gratitude to the Essex Institute for their first glimpses into 

 the glories and the mysteries, — into the grand arcana of 

 this Universe of ours, furnish an ample vindication of our 

 right to be. No friendly soul who has taken any share in 

 the formative labors of our past, — no observer who has a 

 just perception of what we are doing to-day, is able to think 

 of this organization but as a vitalizing, an advancing, an 

 enduring force. It cannot be that all this enthusiasm and 

 devotion is to come to naught. It cannot be that the 

 people of this county, trained for two generations to look 

 to us as the custodians of their ancestral fame, are to be 

 bidden to seek out some other depository for their his- 

 toric wealth, — must find some other shrine whereon to lay 

 their offerings to the manes of their dead. 



Would that there were time to recall the honored names 

 that grace our records, beginning with Holyoke and Bow- 

 ditch and Story and Pickering and Cutler and Dane and 

 White and Silsbee and Sal ton stall and Pea body and Ward 

 and Pickman and King and Merrill, who created the His- 

 torical Society, down through the younger generation of 

 scientists who sustained the Natural History Society and 

 the Institute, until we reach the workers of to-day. The 

 catalogue would be luminous with the brightest names. 

 I suppose those familiar with the inner workings of the 

 Institute in our generation will mostly agree that, next 



