1900J MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 83 



Report of the American Postal Microscopical Club. 



R. H. WARD. 



The membership of the Club varies but little from year 

 to year. Many of the members most active and interest- 

 ed now are those of the Club's earliest years; and they 

 are as ready to give and receive pleasure today, in the 

 cultivation of this most interesting field of labor, as they 

 were twenty or twenty-five years ago. The losses in mem- 

 bership during the last few years, from resignation or 

 otherwise, have fortunately been very few and for una- 

 voidable reasons ; but the task of filling the vacancies 

 thus produced becomes constantly more difficult, not only 

 from the exuberant growth of latter "fads" which stam- 

 pede into other directions a certain proportion of those 

 who would most naturally have been specialists here, but 

 also, and much worse, from the increasing narrow-mind- 

 edness produced by the excessive specialization of the day 

 which renders many of those who "use the microscope as 

 a tool" unable to feel an interest in other lines of work 

 and incapable of taking a comprehensive view of the broad 

 subject. "The only defect is a decrease in the number of 

 those who have a keen interest in the broad field of mi- 

 croscopy in general, without limiting their interest to 

 their own little patch." There is nearly always room for 

 a small number of such applicants, and the management 

 will always be glad to hear of them from members. 



During the year we have lost by death one member, Mr. 

 Richard H. Oakley, of Cleveland Though a member of 

 the Club for only three years, he had already gained a 

 reputation, among all with whom he had dealings, for a 

 prompt, faithful and enthusiastic performance of every- 

 thing he undertook ; and the management had long since 

 learned to know him as one of "the faithful" who would 

 do just right every time. He was thirty years of age, 

 and his occupation in a bank gave him leisure hours which 



