118 Editors’ Table. [ February, 
` of dollars. They give no valuable security or pledge to be for- 
feited should they fail to preserve the integrity of the collections. 
26 No better opportunity can be offered to tempt men to 
enrich their private cabinets at the expense of the academy than 
this proposition presents. It is not prudent to expose the 
property of the academy to such chances without any check or 
protection under its own laws, and confide it unreservedly to the 
purity and incorruptibility of the professors and the laws which 
inflict punishment for larceny and burglary.” The author of this 
language does not seem to be aware that it must excite astonish- 
ment in the minds of scientists everywhere, and that it is a 
boomerang which recoils upon the policy he supports. If there 
is any class of persons to whom property of an academy of 
sciences should of be entrusted, it is the amateurs and collectors 
who do not make original research their profession. Now too 
Jax in administration of a collection, some accident occurs; then 
too strict in their surveutance, collections become practically 
inaccessible. Not knowing the value of material from the stand- 
point of research, they accumulate show collections, and neglect 
the ficids where science reaps her true harvests. The true scien- 
tist does not care to possess collections, excepting so far as they 
are necessary for the prosecution of research, and depredations 
on museums do not come from this class. Once in charge of a 
museum of importance, they naturally take pride in it, and spare 
no pains to preserve in it all records of scientific work. This can 
never be felt by the mere employé, nor by the average corporation 
trustee. Neither class can criticise the work of the specialist as 
the specialists can each other. ot to enumerate self-evident 
truths, the sum of the matter is, that this document desires the 
exclusion from the administration of the collections, the only per- 
sons who are competent for the work. It demands security 
from these, while none is required at present from men who are 
entirely ineligible. 
We do not believe that a majority of the members of the 
academy are prepared to sustain the above positions, but suspect 
that their votes have been influenced by consideration of the 
three following very misleading statements, which form the 
recapitulation at the close of the paper under consideration. 
_ (1) We. quote: “It is notorious that the Academy, since its 
beginning in 1812, has been managed chiefly by, and always in 
the interest of its experts, those members most distinguished for 
their learning, and students” (p. 10). This we deny; and in 
evidence state that instead of its being managed by its experts, 
there are, at present, in a council normally of twenty-three mem- 
bers, but four who make the pursuit of science their business, 
but two of whom are officers of the academy, and only one of 
whom is a curator. Moreover, the by-laws expressly provide 
_ that the prospective professors shall not be members of the coun- — 
