8 MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. [Feb. 



" agriculture is, in fact, Natural History applied " ; and that, in 

 proportion as it rests upon the basis of natural science, will be 

 its honor and success ; and we may hope to see the farmer's life 

 of labor speedily regain its rightful position in the estimation of 

 the youth of our country. In proportion as it has disdained and 

 rejected the aid of science, agriculture has descended in the scale 

 of public esteem ; and in proportion as it shall retrace these false 

 steps, and recognize the truth that intellectual science must go 

 hand in hand with industrial skill, mQ,y it hope to regain that 

 place of honor which it justly held two thousand years ago, when 

 the most illustrious of Eoman poets, and the greatest of Koman 

 orators, considered it an honor to themselves, and a duty to their 

 country, to sing its praises, and to record the benefits and bless- 

 ings derived from its cultivation by the learned and the noble of 

 their age ! 



The Committee have dwelt upon this point of the pecuniary 

 profit to be derived from the study of Zoology at the greater 

 length, because in this practical, money-making age, a consider- 

 able number of our citizens will naturally, and almost uninten- 

 tionally, estimate the value of educational and other institutions 

 by the " dollar " test ; and thus, adopting their own standard, it 

 must be plain to every reflecting mind, that the establishment of 

 this new Museum of Zoology, with its educational machinery, 

 framed and directed by the experience and judgment of the illus- 

 trious naturalist who presides over it, is unquestionably calculated 

 to develop the commercial and agricultural resources of our 

 country, and thereby add to its wealth and prosperity. 



But important as this may be in itself, it would still be but 

 a narrow and mean basis on which alone to rest and advocate 

 the study of Natural History, and, as one of its most valuable 

 departments, Comparative Zoology. It has long been one of the 

 great problems of education to discover a study which might 

 draw the imagination from its inward reveries to outward obser- 

 vation, and concentre it upon objects that should excite its 

 admiration and awaken its curiosity, without wearying the brain 



