PUBLIC APPEAL MADE ON HIS BEHALF. 433 



existing fund, which is above 200, to the foundation of 

 annual prizes, offered to each of the schools in the above 

 parishes first, for the best collections of native plants in 

 the district, gathered and named during the year by the 

 candidates, male or female, in order to encourage practical 

 botanising in the field ; and, second, to the successful 

 candidates after, examination on Botany, according to the 

 three years' course laid down in the Specific Subjects of 

 the " Revised Code " for Scotland, in order to encourage a 

 theoretical study of the science. 



It was further generously and wisely enacted in the 

 Trust Deed, that John Duncan's large library of valuable 

 scientific and other books should be made over to the 

 parish of Alford, for the promotion of the same purposes in 

 connection with science ; and that their present custody be 

 given to the Alford Mutual Improvement Association, and 

 after it ceases to exist, to the School Board of the parish ; 

 a few books only being reserved, to be presented by the 

 trustees as souvenirs to intimate friends. 



It is devoutly to be hoped that these incitements to- 

 practical work and study will rouse interest in subjects 

 painfully neglected in our schools, the pleasure of which 

 will alone be a great reward, apart altogether from their 

 higher results ; and introduce the youth of the district in 

 which John made his own happy triumphs, to the delights 

 of scientific research and a knowledge of the beauties of 

 nature around them, to which the untrained eyes of their 

 fathers were blind. 



2 F 



