46 



for experimental investigation in connection with the biological station 

 on the Illinois river, now maintuined jointly by the State Laboratory 

 and the University of Illinois. 1 suggest it lo you for consideration in 

 connection with plans for a university museum building, with which it 

 might be best associated both in manaeement and construction. 



THE BIOLOGICAL STATION. 



I have next to report the establishment last spring, in leased quarters 

 on the Illinois river, at Havana, of an aquatic Biological Station, jointly 

 maintained throughout the season by the University of Illinois and the 

 State Laboratory of Natural History. 



This Station was opened April 1 under authority of the trustees of the 

 University given in your action on a communication submitted by me to 

 your committee on instruction March 2, 1894. and printed in part in the 

 proceedings of the board for March 1.3 (p. 114). As the appropriation made 

 hj you to this end from the University funds was not immediately avail- 

 able, the Station work was carried by the State Laboratory untiTjuly 1. 

 and the resources of the Laboratory will also be further dVawn upon.' as 

 may be necessary, for its support until the Legislature may have had 

 time to act upon our request for the means of future maintenance. 



As this establishment is unique in this country, and is in some important 

 respects the only one of its kind in the world, I shall feel obliged to enter 

 into some detail concerning its purposes, organization and operations. Since 

 it is now, and, in my judgment, should continue to be, supported jointly 

 by the University and the Laboratory, I can best report upon it here 

 from both these points of view. 



The Station depends for its establishment, perpetuation and develop- 

 ment on the acceptance of the following general ideas: That it is a 

 part of the office of a university, properly so-called, to promote the prog- 

 ress of pure science; that an institution whose scientitic work is closely 

 limited to the economic field may be an industrial school, but cannot be 

 a university; but that a state institution both educational and scientific 

 in its character should stand in the closest possible relation to the gen- 

 eral public welfare, and hence should work out in every direction the 

 application of the results of its investigations to industrial and educa- 

 tional affairs; and that a state institution of this character should espe- 

 cially help to make the people of the state acquainted with the state 

 itself. 



The general objects of our Station are to provide additional facilities 

 and resources for the natural history survey of the State, now being car- 

 ried on, under legislative authorization, by the State Laboratory of Nat- 

 ural History; to contribute largely to a thoroughgoing scientific knowl- 

 edge of the whold* system of life existing in the waters of this State, 

 with a view to economic as well as educational applications, and espe- 

 cially with reference to the improvement of fish culture and to the pre- 

 vention of a progressive pollution of our streams and lakes; to occupy a 

 rich and promising field of original biological investigation hitherto 

 largely overlooked or neglected, not only in America, but throughout the ' 

 world; and to increase tlie resources of the zoological and botanical de- 

 partments of the University by providing means and facilities for special 

 lines of both graduate and undergraduate work and study for those tak- 

 ing major courses in these departments. 



The Station differs from most of the small number of similar stations 

 thus far established in this country from the fact tliat its main object is 

 investigation instead of instruction, the latter being a secondary, and at 

 present an incidental object only. It has for its field the entire system 

 of life in the Illinois river and connected lakes and other adjacent waters, 

 and it is my intention to extend the work as rapidly as possible to the 

 Mississippi river system, thus making a beginning on a comprehensive 

 and very tliorougligoing work in the general field of tlie aquatic life of 

 the Mississippi A'alley. in all its relations, scientific and economic. 



