554 children's room in Smithsonian institution. 



In that great work, our very hiohest authority on the subject (need 

 we say that "The Swiss Family Robinson" is meant!'), we have always 

 taken unmixed delight, although some people say that so many kinds 

 of interesting beasts could never really have been in one island. If 

 there are any errors there, though, we do not love it for them, but for 

 its good qualities, and the tirst of these is that it interests us all 

 through. We think there is nothing in the world more entertaining 

 than birds, animals, and live things; and next to these is our interest 

 in the same things, even though they are not alive; and next to this is 

 to read about them. All of us care about them, and some of us hope 

 to care about them all our lives long. We are not very much inter- 

 ested in the Latin names, and however much they may mean to 

 grown-up people, we do not want to have our entertainment spoiled 

 by its being made a lesson. 



Now, I entirel}^ agree with my small friends so far, but I will add 

 something that they only dimly understand and that some of their 

 instructoi's do not understand at all. It is that to interest the young 

 minds in such things is to lay the foundation for more serious study 

 in after life. There are spots on the sun, and even the "'Swiss Fam- 

 ily Robinson" is not quite perfect as an authority in natural histor}-; 

 but the "child is father to the man," and many a young naturalist 

 would never have been a student of nature at all if he had not owed 

 his tirst impulse to some such work as that, or to the sight of things, 

 like those in the Children's Room, arranged for the same minds that 

 delight in the book. 



Some great philosopher has said that "Knowledge begins in won- 

 der," and there is a great deal in the saying. If I may speak of 

 myself, 1 am sure I remember how the whole studies of my life have 

 been colored by one or two strong impressions received in childhood. 

 The lying down, as a child, in a new England pasture and looking at 

 the mysterious soaring of a hen hawk far above in the sky has led me 

 to give many years of mature life to the study of the subject of trav- 

 eling in air; and puzzling about the way the hotbed I used to see on 

 the farm kept the earh' vegetables warm under its glass roof has led to 

 many years of study in after life on the way that that great hotbed, the 

 earth, is kept warm by its atmosphere; and so on w^ith other things. 



I wish that all children might, as they grow older, learn the .sense 

 of the poet who has said: 



Who is the happy warrior? Who is he 

 That every man in arms should wish to be? 

 It is the generous spirit who, when brought 

 Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought 

 Upon the plan that pleased his boyish thought. 



Doctor Langley has thus told us of his appointment as curator of the 

 children's room, but he has not told us of what long years of preparation 

 have been crystallized into this apparently simple task, what patient, 

 thoughtful work in every department and detail, with the interest and 

 the entertainment of the child always in view. 



After accepting this somewhat arduous and wholly portionless task, 

 he undertook to do his best to have such a place provided and install 

 in it only such things as his friends, the other children, would like. 



