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.HISTORY OF THE FORMER STATE NATURAL 

 HISTORY SOCIETIES OF ILLINOIS. 



S. A. Forbes. 



The history of scientific organization is a part, merely, of 

 the history of scientific progress, and that is a part of the his- 

 tory of the progress of civilization, and especially of education ; 

 and the subject which I am to present is no exception to this 

 rule. It is difficult to omit from even a brief abstract of the 

 history of the Illinois natural history societies all reference to 

 the character and status of the general movements of which 

 they were scarcely more than by-products, and still to leave in 

 the account enough significance to make it worthy of presen- 

 tation here. Under these circumstances I shall be governed by 

 the reflection that we are today looking forward and not back 

 — that we are preparing for the future and not studying the 

 past — and that we are hence practically interested in what has 

 come and gone only as it may help us to bring a new thing 

 into being in a way to secure its permanent continuance and 

 its nomial growth. There have been two state natural history 

 societies in Illinois, one founded in 1858, and the other in 1879. 

 The first was the result of a proposal by an entomologist, Dr. 

 Cyrus Thomas, afterwards State Entomologist of Illinois, made 

 at a meeting of the State Teachers' Association at Bloomington 

 in 1857. The second sprang up as a sequel to the sessions of a 

 summer school of natural science held at the State Normal 

 School, at Normal, and had for its first president, the state 



