30 Cincinnati Society of Natural Ilistonj 



city, state or national government. The remaining seven 

 percent are in private hands or supported by endowment. 



The century following 1773 was preeminently the epoch 

 of the Natural History Society. It may be said to have opened 

 with the founding of the Chai:leston Museum in 1773 and closed 

 with the founding of the Cincinnati Society of Natural History 

 in 1870. It should, however, be remembered that this society 

 had an earlier career under the name of the "Western Academy 

 of Sciences." Many of these societies are in a dying condition. 

 Their rise and decadence contains an element of pathos. Briefly 

 stated, the several sciences, having passed the stage of super- 

 stition, had entered the Natural History stage and had not 

 yet reached the laboratory stage. Zoology and Botany were 

 busy describing and classifying animals and plants and learning 

 their habits. Paleontology was doing similar work with fossils. 

 Every local field was virgin soil and the amateur hunter rendered 

 important service. Most significant of all, the researches of 

 local professors and other scientific men lay along the same 

 lines which enchanted the amateur. Leadership was thus 

 afforded and mutual interest prevailed. There was a democracy 

 in the pursuit of science which passed away when the work of 

 hunting, describing and classifying had been in large measure 

 accomplished and scientific men took up the microscope and 

 the scalpel and gave their thoughts to problems which in their 

 very nature do not lend themselves to popular interest. This 

 may be called the laboratory stage of science. It begets intense 

 specialization and much of it involves quantitative work. 

 The interests of Biology superseded those of Botany and 

 Zoology. Few biologists are now interested in a whole bird, or at 

 least not in the outside of a whole bird. 



Inevitable as it is, it would be folly to close one's eyes to 

 the loss which this change involves, or to endure that loss 

 complacently without at least an effort to keep up the ennobling 

 influence of Natural History. Still, the truth must be told, that 

 when the present-day scientific man participates in his local 

 Natural History Society, it is because of a missionary interest 

 and not because of that "enlightened selfishness" which is the 



