THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 99 



eral advancement of human knowledge of the common objects which 

 are lying all around our path. 



The only other reason why I chose this subject, which I will 

 name, is that some months ago a sister society in this city was 

 agitating the question of a museum, I presume primarily historical. 

 It occurred to me that it would be a pity if two institutions in the 

 same community should be claiming recognition as desirous of 

 founding a museum when one of them had already a nucleus of a 

 museum in hand, and when by union the objects of both could be 

 realized with greater ease. 



Just one word more before I come to the subject proper, and 

 this by way of encouragement, to undertake the collection hinted at. 

 The older members of the Association will remember that, when we 

 took up house of our own, after having lived for many years in tents 

 as it were, our properties available for museum purposes con- 

 sisted of a few old boxes of fossils and minerals, a moth-eaten emu, 

 a dilapidated flying squirrel, a spiny fish (the ornithorinchus), an old 

 owl, a large wasp nest, a copy of the Breeches bible, and a few sun- 

 dry curios. 



And now we see what has been added, largely without much 

 effort, an indication I think of what might be in a few years hence 

 if we lay down a plan and vigorously carry it out. 



It is hardly necessary for me to say anything in such a meeting 

 as this upon the advantages of such a work as I trust our Associa- 

 tion desires to encourage by means of a museum. We will, if you 

 please, take that for granted. 



The formation of such societies as ours in all the principal cen- 

 tres of population in the country, and not only on this western con- 

 tinent but in all lands in which anything like intellectual culture has 

 a hold upon the people, is a proof that they fulfil a national want in 

 the human mind in its present stage of development. The steady 

 increase in the number of these societies — for they are mostly the 

 offspring of the latter half of the present century — shows that this 

 want is becoming more keenly felt as time goes on. I find out of 

 sixty-three societies affiliated with the British Association, which is 

 to meet in Toronto next year, no less than forty-eight of them had 

 their origin since 1850. I have not been able to get the statistics 

 of kindred societies in the United States and Canada, but it would 



