FIFTY YEARS OF MUSEUM WORK 



9 



This is particularly true of my own case; I had not the slightest 

 idea or intention of passing my life in a museum or in museum work, and 

 that I came to do so was the result of a train of circumstances with which 

 I had little to do, largely out of my control and whose import I did not 

 recognize. 



We speak truly of a combination of circumstances, for like an old- 

 fashioned Chinese puzzle in which a number of apparently unrelated 

 pieces are fitted together to make some definite figure, so a number of 

 trivial events, seemingly having no connection one with the other, 

 combine to have a very definite and important influence on our careers. 

 I had an ambition to be a taxidermist and collector of birds, an ambition 

 due to the fact that I had an uncle who was an amateur (and as I came 

 to realize a very indifferent) taxidermist, and "stuffing birds" seemed 

 to me a very pleasant and easy way of earning a livelihood. My uncle 

 obtained his knowledge of taxidermy from Prof. J. W. P. Jenks of Peirce 

 Academy, Middleboro, later of Brown University, and the small Mu- 

 seum at the Academy was the primary, if not the prime, factor in 

 determining that I should become a museum worker. It may be noted 

 that Louis Agassiz called attention to this museum as a noteworthy 

 example of what might be accomplished in a small community. 



1871-1882 



That I went to Ward's Establishment was another, and doubtless 

 the most important, factor in my life and my going there was due to the 

 fact that we had for a friend a mining engineer who had met Professor 

 Ward in Montana. If this friend had not known Professor Ward and if 

 he had not been at home just at the time it became necessary for me to 

 think seriously of doing something, there is no telling where I might be 

 now or what I might be doing. As it was, while I was considering whether 

 I should enter a machine shop or endeavor to take a course in the Massa- 

 chusetts Institute of Technology, the problem was solved by the sugges- 

 tion of Mr. Hodge that " Ward's was the place for me." My father wrote 

 Professor Ward that he had a boy whose chief desire seemed to be to 

 skin snakes,— had he any use for such a specimen? This was really not 

 quite fair (parents do not always properly appreciate their offspring), 

 because my ambition was to become a taxidermist. 



So it came to pass that early in January, 1871, 1 landed in the over- 

 grown town of Rochester 1 and began work at Ward's Natural Science 



"Possibly Rochesterians of the present day may resent this term, but the Rochester of 1S71 had no 

 waterworks ami no sewers the streets were mostly ..f ,li,t ami the sideualks of iv„od, the four street- 

 car lines rati a hob-tailed ear from "the four corners" every half hour, anrl a large portion of the 

 population "traded" at Scmple s grocery. 



