President's Address. 35 



what they infer ; and yet this rule is unintentionally violated from 

 one to three times, on the average, during each recitation. The 

 students prepare in class detailed descriptions of plants they are 

 studying, and then determine the species by using Grays "Flora" 

 with its several keys. After each statement of a characteristic in 

 the key the student must pronounce judgment, subject to the criti- 

 cism of the class and teacher. In this way the students are led 

 not only to observe closely, but also to cultivate the habit of truth- 

 telling, a practice that is exceedingly rare even in brief conversa- 

 tions. The ability to classify a specimen, while in itself a pleasure, 

 also doubles the pleasure of collecting, as all' know who have tried 

 it, and greatly increases the range of objects collected. 



As before stated, the young naturalists of Kansas sadly lack 

 keys to Kansas specimens, and manuals describing their habits or 

 qualities and economic importance. 



Now that the members of this Academy have prepared fairly 

 complete lists of the mamals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, in- 

 sects and other invertebrates ; and of the algae, fungi, mosses, ferns 

 and flowering plants of Kansas, why, as before suggested, may not 

 this Academy; through special committees, take up the work of 

 preparing natural histories of our animals and plants, each history 

 having its working key to the groups described ? Other states have 

 prepared these manuals with predominant economic features, and 

 why may not Kansas ? It must be done largely as a work of love; but 

 a wonderful impetus would thus be given to the study of the sci- 

 ences by the members of this Academy, by the students in the vari- 

 ous schools of the state, and by independent workers throughout 

 Kansas. 



The third and highest stage in the development of the sciences 

 is that of philosophy, a stage in which we love wisdom for its own 

 sake; where man comes nearest "to thinking the thoughts of God 

 after Him." 



When naturalists have collected an abundance of data from the 

 various fields of research among the myriad forms of plant and 

 animal life ; when scientists have classified these data in all possible 

 ways, using, for instance, as bases, form, structure, food-getting 

 habits, modes of offense and defense, tendencies to variation, methods 

 of development from the fertilized egg, and the lines of development 

 of the fossil forms dug out of the crust of the earth ; and when 

 master scientists shall have taken these classifications of the ob- 

 served facts, and all the hypotheses and theories of science, and 

 shall have sorted and arranged them with due regard to perspective. 



