Annual Reports 8i 



The president introduced Hon. William G. Willcox, President o£ the 

 Board of Education and the donor of the largest amount toward the build- 

 ing fund. Mr. Willcox said in substance that while the great war naturally- 

 occupied a large part of everyone's mind at this time, it seemed to him 

 desirable that continued efforts toward educational advancement should 

 not be abandoned. To this end he felt that the Public Museum, arising 

 from an association maintained for more than a quarter of a century by 

 private enterprise, was deserving of every encouragement; he was glad 

 to have been able to assist and congratulated the president, the trustees 

 and the scientific staff of the Association on the approaching fruition of 

 their labors. 



The president introduced Dr. Nathaniel L. Britton, Director of the New 

 York Botanical Garden and one of the three men who signed the call for 

 the first meeting of the Natural Science Association in 1881. Dr. Britton 

 spoke as follows : 



The little group of students that founded the Natural Science Asso- 

 ciation of Staten Island in November, 1881, had at the time little more in 

 view than to provide opportunity, through meetings, of an interchange of 

 facts and opinions concerning rocks, minerals, plants, animals, and relics 

 of the island, but the formation of collections of these objects and of 

 books and pamphlets for the Association, as distinguished from the per- 

 sonal collections and libraries of the members, were soon afterward taken 

 up as a definite purpose. This accumulation of specimens and of litera- 

 ture has since proceeded continuously, objects of art and objects illus- 

 trating history were first added to the collections at a later period. In 

 recent years, the increase of all these kinds of collections has gone for- 

 ward simultaneously, the scope of the society becoming constantly broad- 

 ened; its change of name in the spring of 1905, to the Staten Island 

 Association of Arts and Sciences, was a natural and appropriate recog- 

 nition of this expanded usefulness, going so far indeed as to place in the 

 title, "at least Arts before Sciences; perhaps this was only for the sake 

 of euphony. 



The museum and library thus accumulated during thirty-six years, 

 through the efforts of many members and friends, and hitherto conserved 

 under great disadvantages, are now to be made secure in the new build- 

 ing, the commencement of construction of« which we celebrate today. 

 The collections which will find their permanent home here are highly im- 

 portant to this community, to the city, and to knowledge in general; 

 many of the specimens are unique and could not possibly be duplicated; 

 by no means all of them are large and conspicuous objects; in fact, most 

 of them are not striking in appearance, but they are of enormous impor- 

 tance historically and from the standpoint of local nature study; they 

 include almost complete illustrations of the geology, mineralogy, botany, 

 zoology, and archeology of the Borough of Richmond; the historic and 

 artistic objects are in many instances rare and noteworthy. We cannot 



