60 800. OF AM. TAXIDPJRMISTS, ANNUAL REPORT, 
stimulate the various competitors in a healthy improvement, which 
in due time would ultimately culminate in steady progression. 
Some charity of feeling is due these earlier patrons. They 
did not neglect to perform the duties devolving upon them from 
a lack of interest in the matter; on the contrary, their course 
was the outcome of absolute ignorance — they simply did not 
know; they had no exalted ideas of what to them appeared as a 
mere mechanical trade. They could not bow before a shrine 
that had no existence, and pay tribute to a god that as yet had 
not appeared before them. To these men, who are now beyond 
the assaults of living creatures, a spirit of forgiveness should 
be manifested, and I for one most willingly extend the forgiving 
hand. 
Would that they had been wiser, more exacting, and even un- 
relenting in their criticisms, and fairly persecuted the earlier 
taxidermists until they cried for quarter, and thus brought them 
to an understanding of what they might do to establish taxi- 
dermy as an acknowledged art, and elevate it well beyond the 
caustic eye of the skeptical critique. Had these men labored 
and sought to attach to taxidermy the importance that it war- 
ranted our labors of to-day would be far easier, and this present 
Exhibition would not stand before the people of to-day as ex- 
perimental, being clothed in the sober grey garments of uncer- 
tainty, but in the established ranks of the true and meritorious 
Ril'ts# 
I cannot pass by without uttering a rebuke to those who have 
had it in their power to assist in elevating the cause we espouse 
and have failed to do so. 
And now that we are convinced that they have erred in the 
past, it is for the present and future generations to jump out of 
the well-worn ruts of the past into the broad light of a new 
future. This shadowy picture is somewhat dispelled by the 
rapid stride that taxidermy has taken in the last ten years. A 
change — a radical change — has taken place in these few years. 
The cold indifference indulged in, linked with the imperfect edu- 
cation of the pioneer patrons of taxidermy, is fast disappearing. 
Our more advanced and liberal educational institutions are moving 
in the right directions. They see that what has hitherto been 
I 
