I 22 
ANNUAL MEETING. 
history, and is found quite apart from distinctions of either class 
or rank or other associations, for students of nature are found 
amongst men of the highest social rank and great wealth. I may 
mention one of the princes of the Imperial House of Austria, and 
a very recent King of Belgium ; while the heir to one of our own 
richest houses — Rothschild’s — is well known as a most devoted 
and enthusiastic student. Then on the other hand you will all 
remember Thomas Edward, the Scottish naturalist, who for the 
whole of his life was a working shoemaker, and yet was a most 
devoted student of nature. There are people in all ranks with 
this taste — with this desire — and all these people, I am sure, 
lead purer lives than those who have not it ; for though they 
cannot cultivate it as a profession (for many cannot), it adds 
something of enjoyment to almost everything they do, almost 
every day they exist, which people who have not the taste 
never feel. Now the question arises, Is this peculiar condition 
of mind which enables one to enjoy nature and the beauties of 
nature around us in our own country, and in our own time, 
increasing, or is it not ? 
Facilities are very great, and organisations are being formed 
all over the country, in the way of societies such as this, and 
others with similar aims ; but I confess that when I go round 
the country and talk to people and see what they are doing, I 
am sometimes disappointed to see that it advances so slowly 
and so little. A society is formed, some one or two enthusiastic 
persons keep it going for a time, and when they pass away the 
interest flags and very often drops out altogether. But what 
discourages one more than anything else is the condition of 
the museums of this country. I take a great interest in 
museums, as you are aware, and I make a point, wherever I travel, 
of going to see what is going on in the local museum. A 
museum is started or established in some country town, a 
building is appropriated, various things are brought together, 
and the people who have done this think they have done a great 
thing towards cultivating a love for natural history. But in 
twenty or thirty years when you go again to that place, you will 
see the building and most of the specimens, but in such a con- 
dition that you might well think that the inscription “ Rubbish 
may be shot here ” should be over the doorway. There are a 
few exceptions here and there, of course, but the principal 
reason is that when people start a museum they forget one 
thing. If you were starting a school the first thing you would 
think of would be the schoolmaster. A church is of no use 
without a minister ; a garden is of no good without a gardener. 
None of these things are expected to take care of themselves, 
yet that is what is expected of nearly all the museums in the 
country. They are set up and the exhibits are arranged, but 
the last thing anybody seems to think anything about is the 
curator. A curator is the heart and soul of a museum, and 
yet we have museums going to decay because nobody thought 
