American Fisheries Society 39 



scientific institutions; and although I am speaking as an 

 insider and perhaps should not praise my own city, neverthe- 

 less I do feel proud of the progress which has been made 

 in the last ten or fifteen years. This is reflected in the 

 Aquarium which you saw yesterday under what I think 

 you will all recognize as the most able management of Dr. 

 Townsend, and is shown, I think, in this institution which 

 has been under the direction of Dr. Bumpus, and in the 

 Zoological Park under the direction of Dr. Hornaday. 

 These three institutions last year had between 6,000,000 

 and 7,000,000 visitors. They are free every day in the year 

 to the public, and there is no city in the world that now 

 offers the advantages for free education in natural history 

 in its most popular form equal to that of the city of Man- 

 hattan, which, I am sorry to say, in some parts of the 

 United States, is still considered as under corrupt rule and 

 the mismanagement of a bad government. Gentlemen, we 

 have not a bad government, we have a good government. 

 ( Applause. ) 



And I will say this for our administrators. They never 

 button up the purse when these institutions come to them 

 and ask for money; for whatever else they may differ 

 about, they are all one on the subject of education. 



Now I would like to call your attention within the Museum 

 to certain exhibits which you may otherwise not see in the 

 short time at your disposal. One is the admirable gallery 

 of fishes arranged by Mr. Miner, under the direction of Dr. 

 Bumpus ; the other is the beautiful alcove of the extinct 

 fishes of this country, going back to the earliest time of 

 which we have any records of fish life, arranged by Dr. 

 Bashford Dean with the assistance of Dr. Hussakof. This 

 is only a beginning of what the Museum hopes to do in this 

 very imix)rtant field of life. We propose first to have a hall 

 as large as any of our standard halls which shall be devoted 

 entirely to fish life; secondly. Mr. President, we are now 

 beginning to plan what will be a most important adjunct, 

 that is, a hall devoted to oceanography, to the whole science 



