56 Transactions Tennessee Academy of Science. 



Reco})ii}iendatioiis. 



In closing, I desire to make some recommendations concerning 

 the work of the Academy. 



1. By-law 1 provides that any special department of work may 

 be assigned to a curator, whose duty it shall be, with the assist- 

 ance of other members, to promote the work of that department. 

 I would therefore recommend that a Department of Science 

 Teaching in the Public Schools be created and a Curator placed 

 in charge. 



2. It is a well known fact that owing to neglect, the advantages 

 of our State in material resources and physical conditions are 

 little known outside its borders and to relatively few within. 

 During the next three years, three Expositions are to be held, each 

 of which will offer unparalleled opportunities for publishing to the 

 world the nature of our resources and the progress we are mak- 

 ing along industrial and educational lines. These are the National 

 Conservation Exposition in Knoxville, in 1913 ; the Exposition at 

 San Diego, 1914, and the Panama Exposition at San Francisco, in 

 1915. The importance of providing for exhibits at each of these 

 Expositions should be urged upon the coming legislature. A bill 

 providing for an appropriation to prepare suitable exhibits for 

 each of these Expositions is to be presented, and I would recom- 

 mend that the Academy endorse such a bill and urge upon the 

 members of the legislature its passage. 



3. If time permitted, I would like to discuss at greater length 

 the great importance of the museum as an educational factor. 

 The Europeans are far ahead of us in their appreciation of this 

 means of instruction. Few indeed are the places there without 

 their museums and collections, to visit which constitutes one of the 

 chief ends of the American traveler. Take for example the Brit- 

 ish Museum, which is the Mecca of the investigator in every line 

 of study, as well as a school of instruction for the ordinary visi- 

 tor. Jn America, coincident with the awakening of civic con- 

 scicnisness, has come the recognition of museums as one of the 

 important elements of the social and intellectual progress. Thus. 

 New York, on putting her swaddling clothes aside, began the 

 upbuilding of that great institution, the Xcw 'N'ork Museum of 

 Natural History. The growth nf thr .Mnscuni idea as pointed 



uU ])v I I. I'". ( )xl)ornc' is due to the fact "lliat this institution is not 



