156 
TH^KING OF MUSEUM-BUILDERS. 
Rochester, is merely an iqArtant incident in 
the development of the il^. A still more 
moving cause was the appointment of young 
Mr. Ward, after five years' Btndy 
and work abroad, to the profes- 
sorship of mineralogy, geology 
and zoology in the University of 
Rochester. It was during his 
work there as a teacher that he 
found how seriously every Ameri 
can teacher of science was ham- 
pered and handicapped by the lack 
of tangible representatives of the 
beasts, birds and reptiles that 
abounded in geologic times.and are 
now extinct. Therefore, for sev- 
eral years in succession, he spent 
his vacations in the royal museums 
of Europe, making plaater-of-paris 
moulds of their rarer and more 
striking fossils, from which he 
was afterward enabled to make perfect plaster 
copies of the originals for his beloved cabinet 
in the University of Rochester. 
The outcome might easily have been fore- 
seen by a blind man. No sooner were those 
wonderful casts brought forward than other 
institutions of learning sought copies from the 
same moulds, and *' Ward's Casts of Cele- 
brated Fossils " was the final 
can teachers and students, 
originals were inaccessible, 
with them. 
Illustrated descriptive catalogues were is- 
sued, the largest of which we used in my 
alma mater as a text book I The casts became 
esceetlingly popular, and were an important 
factor in tlie final upbuilding of what is now 
the Ward establishment. In arranging to 
furnish educators generally with duplicate 
series of his casts of fossils, Professor Ward 
became deeply impressed by the needs of 
American teachers and museums of science 
for more illustrative material of all kinds for 
object teaching He also became acquainted 
with so great a number of scientific men, and 
his interest in supplying their wants finally 
became so keen that in 1869 he gave up his 
professorship in the University of Rochester. 
Embowered in the stately elms and spread- 
ing maples that overarch College avenue, 
almost in the shadow of the main building of 
the University, there now stands a group of 
sixteen buildings of about twelve different 
sizes, each with a gilded totem at its peak to 
show the place in nature of its contents. Over 
the wide gateway to the court yard where 
boxes are delivered and shipped, the lower 
jaws of an immense right whale form a gothic 
arch. As you enter, a conspicu- 
ous placard informs you, in the 
most business-like way iiji the 
world— 
THIS IS NOT A MUSEUM, 
: But AWoRKiNa EsTAuiiisnMENT, 
Wliere all Are A^ery Busy. 
An Orahg-utan. 
result. Ameri- 
to whom the 
were delighted 
If you doubt it, glance in at the 
open doors as you pass along, and 
note how busily the difljerent 
groups of workers are wrestling 
with half stuffed orang-utans, 
half mounted buffalo skeletons, 
with shells and corals, minerals, 
rocks and fossils. 
Adjoining all these buildings on the north -.8 
a spacious and well-lighted square house, in 
the upper right hand comer of which is **the 
study."— dear to the memory of I cannot tell 
you how many naturalists, both young and 
old. In the front right hand corner of the big 
study, which is walled with books, barricaded 
with maps and eternally littered with scien- 
tific papers and pamphlets and photographs 
and drawings and small specimens, there sits 
the presiding genius of this unicjue world. No 
man is more busy than he, yet Abraham Lin- 
coln himself was not more approachable, nor 
more kind toward everyone desiring to see him. 
Twenty-one years ago, when I was an ignor- 
ant, unattractive and bumptious college stu- 
dent, no sooner did I hear of this strange man 
than I fired a letter at him, modestly stating 
that I would like to have him teach me every- 
thing I most desired to know. When Profes- 
sor Bessey read his kind, and even fatherly 
reply, he remarked with vigor, '*Well. that 
man is no churl, that's plain." And truly he 
was not, as many an American naturalist can 
testify. It was here that Gr. K. Gilbert, now 
chief geologist of the United States geological 
survey, made his start in the field in which he 
is now distinguished ; and so did the late Prof. 
James Orton, of Vassar college; and f rederic 
A. Lucas, curator of comparative aiiatomy ^t 
the National museum; and Prof. Walter B. 
Barrows, now bf. the Michigan Agriculttiral 
college ; Prof. F. b^^^^^er, of the Massa- 
chusetts State JJpr^l^ school: Mr. Edwin E. 
/ 
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