l888.] NEW-YORK MICROSCOPICAL SOCIETY. lOV 



learning, and stimulate and develop in one another a true love 

 for and devotion to the worthy cause of scientific truth. More 

 than this we may indeed hope to do ; but beyond this we are 

 not really bound to go. I do not know who may rightfully com- 

 plain if, as a society, we even hold to the character which Emer- 

 son has ascribed to the great man, " who, in the midst of the 

 crowd, keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of soli- 

 tude ; " for discoveries worth proclaiming to the world are not 

 made every two or three weeks, but inspiration and elevation 

 are to be obtained from the frequent contemplation of the facts 

 made known to us by the instrument around which it is our 

 pleasure to gather and from which it is our pride to take our 

 name. 



And yet it is not long since some professed advocates of the 

 popularization of science went through the form of reading us 

 microscopists out of the general body of scientists, on the ground 

 that we were not entitled to fellowship or encouragement be- 

 cause we were only '''^ amateurs " (that is to sa.y /overs o( science), 

 were " hangers-on to the regular scientific army," were "univer- 

 sal gatherers," and were undertaking to divide the sciences ac- 

 cording to the tools used ; " and we were spoken of contemp- 

 tuously as " delighting in a formidable and extensive deal of 

 brass stand." 



To most of these charges it was hardly necessary to put in 

 any formal defense, for it was obvious that the animus of the 

 attack upon us was the old-fashioned delusion that there is some 

 kind of merit in doing scientific work with poor appliances. 

 But another phase of this general notion has recently manifested 

 itself in a vigorous onslaught upon American microscopes, for 

 which, with evident appropriateness, the vehicle selected has 

 been the journal which three years ago promulgated the now 

 celebrated bull of excommunication. According to the latest 

 champion of scientific orthodoxy, who declares that he has " seen 

 and examined a great many different stands, and the lenses of 

 many manufacturers," — " it is undesirable to recommend a 

 student to purchase any microscope whatsoever of American 

 manufacture," but it is desirable " to always counsel him to ob- 

 tain, if possible, one of the German or French instruments," 

 which, as nearly as I can make out, conform to the common 



