THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SCIENCES IN KANSAS. 



By Lyman C. Wooster, Ph. D., Emporia. 



Presidential address, delivered at Lawrence, December 1, 1905, before the thirty-eighth annual 



meeting of the Kansas Academy of Science. 



TN preparing this address, the speaker has kept constantly in mind 

 -^ the needs and special interests of those who are beginners in 

 scientific work or are actively engaged in exploring fields that are 

 new and difficult. More than thirty years of science work in the 

 schoolroom have fostered within him a most earnest desire to help 

 in all scientific enterprises. 



The membership of our Academy of Science has been nearly 

 doubled during the past few years by reason of somewhat urgent 

 efforts on the part of its officers and members. Similar efforts 

 made during the past thirty-seven years of the existence of our 

 organization have been attended with equal success, and so, un- 

 doubtedly, like efforts will be made during the future years of its 

 existence. 



Why should we attempt to increase the attendance at our meet- 

 ings? Some of the answers that might be given would undoubtedly 

 be the following : 



1. All people should be in some degree naturalists, for they will 

 thus have their hours of happiness largely increased. 



2. The state needs more naturalists and scientists, for her in- 

 dustries must always be largely agricultural, horticultural and min- 

 ing in their character, and the prosperity of farmers, miners and 

 orchardists is in large measure dependent on our knowledge of 

 minerals and of plant and animal friends and foes. 



3. The schools of the state are giving a large place each year to 

 nature studies and to natural-science subjects, and the teachers in 

 the public schools must be more largely naturalists and scientists 

 if they do this work successfully. 



4. The pupils in the public schools need manuals containing 

 serviceable keys of Kansas plants ; Kansas insects ; Kansas fish, am- 

 phibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals; Kansas crustaceans, mol- 

 lusks, worms, hydra, sponges, and Protozoa ; and Kansas fossils and 

 minerals. These keys and natural histories should be prepared by 

 Kansas naturalists and scientists under the auspices of this Acad- 



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