1861.] MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 9 



or agitating the heart. This problem is to a great extent solved 

 by Natural History. It has been well observed by an eminent 

 living writer, that "the earnest naturalist is pretty certain to 

 have obtained that great need of all men, to get rid of self. He 

 who, after the hours of business, finds himself with a mind 

 relaxed and wearied, will not be tempted to sit at home, dream- 

 ing over impossible scenes of pleasure, or to go for amusement 

 to haunts of coarse excitement, if he have in every hedge-bank, 

 and woodland, and running stream, in every bird among the 

 boughs, and every cloud above his head, stores of interest which 

 will enable him to forget awhile himself, and man, and all the 

 cares, even all the hopes of human life, and to be alone with the 

 inexhaustible beauty and glory of Nature, and of God who*made 

 her." 



It is indeed of the utmost importance to young minds to be 

 trained in a study which not only tends to draw them out of self 

 and selfishness, but is free from the disturbing influences of all 

 party, political, and personal feeling ; in which they can look, un- 

 disturbed by any of those external distracting influences, at facts 

 exactly as they are, and arrive by patient investigation at candid 

 and correct conclusions. This recommendation powerfully ap- 

 plies to the study of Natural History, and the new Museum of 

 Comparative Zoology will most powerfully assist in developing 

 and promoting that study. 



To the Legislature, Executive, and public and private bene- 

 factors who have, by the influence of position, the contribution 

 of wealth, or the no less valuable contribution of scientific guid- 

 ance and labor, assisted in the founding and forming of this great 

 Normal School of Natural Science, the present and the rising 

 generation owe a deep debt of gratitude, for it promises to be, or 

 rather it already is, a scientific treasury, from which the teacher 

 and divine may draw illustrations of beauty and of power, illus- 

 trating the word by the ivork of God) and in which the retiring 

 student and the energetic son of labor may, side by side, gain a 

 knowledge that shall promote the practical objects of the one, 



