ADDRESSES 



Address of Welcomf-: 



Howard R. Baynk. 

 President of the Staten Island Assuciation of Arts ami Sciences. 



I.AuiES AND Gentlemen: 



It is my pleasant duty to extend to you all a most cordial f^rectin},'- 

 and welcome, and on behalf of the Association, specially t<_» assure the 

 ladies and g^entlemen, our gfuests, of the gratification and honor we 

 feel at their presence around this board. 



We are here this evening- to celebrate the 2Sth anm'versary of the 

 org-anization of the Xatural Science Association of Staten Island. A 

 (juarterof a centtiry closes tonig-ht since 14 g-entlemen met at the home 

 of Mr. William T. Davis, at Tompkinsville, and formed the societ>- 

 u hich we now represent. A number of the organizers are still with us 

 and constitute the most helpful and valuable material we have. 



Many changes have occurred in our community dtiring this long 

 l)eriod. Our population has nearly doubled. The physical appearance 

 of the Island has in some parts completely changed. Many, once well 

 known and prominent among us, have been removed by death or the 

 vicissitudes of fortune which characterize more than anything else our 

 American life today. We have emerged from the simple village and 

 cotmtry life with which we were altogether familiar into something with 

 which we were unfamiliar. We have passed into the civic and social 

 complications of the metropolis of the western hemisphere, with all its 

 great opportunities, its high aspirations, and its world-wide sympathies. 

 And if we have been slow to take our place in the march of progress 

 and to claim for our community its share in the distribution of public 

 opportunities, it has been due, not, I think, to lack of a sense of the need 

 of improvement and advance but rather to the lack of cooperation in 

 laying the foundation broadly and well for the intellectual and moral as 

 well as the material welfare of our borough. 



The Association we here represent tonight stands for this discreet 

 and public spirited cooperation. 



To it the community owes a debt that can never be paid, except by 

 recognition and acknowledgement and encouragement in the years to 

 come. Its work, quietly, unobtrusively, effectively prosecuted for a 

 quarter of a century, has been a labor of lovx. which the muse of His- 



