FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT. 79 



tion with pleasure for the great body of our citizens seems to be 

 now firmly established. We now have the Metropolitan Museum 

 of Art in Central Park, the American Museum of Natural His- 

 tory in Manhattan Square, the great New York Public Library 

 is now in course of construction on the site of the old Forty- 

 second Street Reservoir; in Brooklyn there is the Museum of 

 Arts and Sciences, and at the other end of Bronx Park there are 

 the Botanical Gardens. The power for good which all these in- 

 stitutions exercise in combining instruction with healthful rec- 

 reation can hardly be over-estimated. Moreover, they add in- 

 estimably to the attractiveness of our City. They are or will be 

 show-places which attract visitors ; they help to give our City 

 the reputation it should possess among the great capitals of the 

 world ; they add to the civic pride which is at the basis of good 

 citizenship. I will not detain you longer from participating in 

 the pleasures which are here at hand for you, and will only add 

 that I hope that when those pleasures shall be experienced in 

 the future by the millions of visitors who will come to this Park 

 there will be realized also the feeling that it is a pleasant thing — 

 a glorious privilege, in fact — to be a New Yorker." 



President Morton then introduced Hon. August Moebus, Park 

 Commissioner for the Borough of the Bronx, who spoke as 

 follows : 



REPLY OF HON. AUGUST MOEBUS. 



" Mr. Chairman, Ladies, and Gentlemen : It is a pleasing duty 

 to be present upon the opening of these beautiful gardens, and 

 to participate upon behalf of the City of New York in your 

 formal exercises. 



" The organization of the New York Zoological Society, formed 

 for the purposes of encouraging and advancing the study of 

 zoology, and of furnishing instruction and recreation to the peo- 

 ple, must strongly appeal to the intelligence of, and command the 

 support of, every thinking citizen. 



'* This great City has never been found wanting in its cordial 

 and liberal appreciation of any enterprise that is to the interest 

 and for the benefit of its people. It has set aside 261 acres of this 

 grand park for the purposes of the Society. It has appropriated 

 the sum of $125,000 for the preparation of the grounds. It has 



