4 Transactions of the 



man is wliii'led tlirougli Europe -without gaining a single 

 idea worth crossing the street for, the observing eye and 

 inquiring mind find matter of improvement and delight in 

 every ramble. Do you, then, William, continue to make use 

 of your eyes ; and you, Robert, learn that eyes were given 

 you to use.' 



And when I read that story as a very little boy, T said to 

 myself, ' I will be Mr. Eyes, I will not be Mr, No Ej^es ; ' and 

 Mr. Eyes I have tried to be ever since ; and Mr. Eyes, I 

 advise you — everyone of 3'ou — to be, if you wish to be happy 

 and successful. 



I am happy to say that there are many of you who are 

 already working well at chemistry ; some who have already 

 begun to use their eyes and to make collections of plants, 

 insects, birds' eggs — that is good as far as it goes : as for 

 birds'-nesting, I think it a manly and excellent pursuit, and 

 should like to go birds'-nesting myself now. 



But see, because every boy collects for himself, there is a 

 great deal of useless destruction of eggs, especially of the 

 small soft-billed birds, which are easiest got— these are the 

 very ones that ought to be spared, on account of their gi'eat 

 usefohiess to the farmer in destroying insects; and next, 

 pray where will nine-tenths of their eggs be some seven 

 years hence ? Smashed and in the dust-hole, and so with the 

 insects and plants. Now, it seems to me that if fellows were 

 collecting for a college museum, instead of each one for him- 

 self, it would save a great deal of waste, and save the things 

 themselves likewise. 



As for a fellow liking to say, ' I have got this and I will 

 keep it to myself; I like to have a better collection than anj^- 

 one else,' that is natural enoiigh, but, like a great many 

 natural things, rather a low feeling. Which is better, to keep 

 a thing to yourselves locked up in your own drawer, or to put 

 them in the common stock for the pleasure of everyone ? And 

 which is really more honour to you, to be able to say to two 

 or three of your friends, ' I have got an egg which you have 

 not,' or to have the egg, or whatever else it may be, in a public 

 collection, to be seen by everyone — by boys years hence when 

 you are grown up ? For myself I can't think of a better way 

 of keeping up a corporate feeling in. the College, and binding 

 the different generations as they succeed each other, than a 

 museum of this kind, in which boys should see the names of 

 those who have gone before them, as having presented this 

 or that curious object. 



There are so many of you who have relations abroad or in 



