24 Kansas Academy of Science. 



emy or some similar organization containing men and women of 

 large and varied experience in many fields of natural history. 



5. A large membership gives the Academy a larger influence 

 throughout the state and with the members of the state legislature. 

 We are sadly in need of such recognition of the worth of our re- 

 ports and of our library and museum, that abundant appropriations 

 may be easily forthcoming. 



6. The attendance at common meeting-places at stated times of 

 large numbers of men of science would enable the Academy so to 

 divide its work as to make it possible for those engaged in similar 

 lines of investigation to meet in sections, and thus enable natural- 

 ists, scientists and philosophers to learn by personal conference 

 what is being done in related lines of research. 



7. With many contributors to their pages, the Academy could 

 issue more valuable volumes of proceedings and a series of mono- 

 graphs on special subjects. 



These seven reasons why we should continue to work for a 

 larger membership to the Academy could easily be extended to 

 several more, but those named will serve as an introduction to what 

 it is desired to present for the favorable consideration of this audi- 

 ence. It is not intended to discuss the propositions embodied in 

 the reasons just given in the order in which they have been pre- 

 sented, but an effort will be made to discuss them as they find 

 place in the orderly unfolding of the subject of this address : The 

 Development of the Sciences in Kansas. 



On September 1, 1868, a number of lovers of nature gathered at 

 what is now Washburn College and organized themselves into the 

 Kansas Natural History Society. The name was well chosen, for 

 its members were truly naturalists, and as such have done work of 

 the highest value for themselves and the state. 



If those of our members who have made collections of natural- 

 history specimens and data will remember the experiences of col- 

 lecting trips, or those attending investigations in the laboratory, 

 they must declare that this work has brought more hours of happi- 

 ness than almost any other that has engaged both hands and minds. 



The speaker's own most persistent work as a naturalist has been 

 done in collecting fossils, though insects, birds and plants hav6 

 been collected with almost equal pleasure. 



There is great delight in going through one's collections to feast 

 one's eyes on some rare forms possessed by few others. Each time 

 the hand rests on the specimen there is experienced anew the wild 

 delight that was present when there was first found a specimen of 



