THE MICROSCOPE. 147 



After the addresses of welcome, Prof. Jacob D. Cox, of Cincin- 

 nati, Ohio, President of the American Microscopical Society, 

 read a paper entitled: Why the Technique of the Microscope 

 and its Accessories Should Systematically be Taught in Our 

 Universities. Mr. Cox is dean of the law school of Cincinnati 

 college. He was governor of Ohio in 1866 and 1887 and was 

 Secretary of the Interior in President Grant's cabinet. His pa- 

 per, while necessarily technical to a degree was from time to 

 time embellished with illustrations of microscopical achieve- 

 ments which made it highly acceptable to a popular audience. 

 He urged the desirability of a somewhat extensive course of 

 technical instruction and training in regard to the microscope, 

 backed by so ample a collection of stands, of objectives and of 

 accessory apparatus as shall give the university student the op- 

 portunity to jud^e for himself under the guidance of a compe- 

 tent instructor, of the practical value for general or for special 

 use of the various forms of instruments of different types. The 

 proper procedure in selecting instruments, etc., was dwelt upon 

 The apparatus necessary for the thorough prosecution of micro- 

 scopic work is so expensive that there is scarcely an individual 

 who can make a collection of kinds which is anywhere near 

 complete; so for the best results to be obtained some large or- 

 ganization like our great universities must take up and prose- 

 cute the work. He pointed out wherein microscopic research 

 is becoming a real necessity in the various pursuits of daily life 

 and wherein the facilities for research could be vastly improved. 

 There is an undeniable field for instruction in the technique of 

 the instrument and its accessories, said Mr. Cox. There is room 

 for further improvement in the microscope itself and everything 

 connected with it. There is need for a place where the worker 

 may find everything of value which has been invented or devised, 

 and an opportunity to learn or to test its value by actual com- 

 parison or in use. If our universities will furnish the plant and 

 the instructors, they will do, in a better and more thorough 

 way, what the microscopical societies of Europe and America 

 have been trying to do ; or perhaps will make only more satis- 

 factorily clear the advantage to science of such societies, by giv- 

 ing to every student the ground work which will ensure not 

 only his progress but his lasting interest in these technical stud- 

 ies. At some length the speaker then analyzed the lines of 



