Annual Meeting.] 
176 
[May 4, 
often accompanied by their classes. We have constant inquiries 
from these and others for guides and information, which are unat- 
tainable because the last and costliest step of our plan cannot be 
taken. We are crippled in everyway. Our assistants are working 
on half time, and the funds devoted to the whole Museum and to 
the purchase of specimens would not pay more than half of the 
express bills of a large Museum. 
Our experience this year has also shown clearly that no guides 
worthy of that name can be published until the collections which 
they represent are completed and arranged. 
The objects we have in view are of general importance and 
would doubtless meet with proper recognition if they were 
brought before the public. 
The activity in our educational departments, the Laboratory 
and the Teachers’ School of Science, is again a matter of con- 
gratulation and will be noticed more fully farther on under the 
proper headings. 
A change of great importance to the future well-being of the 
Society was made during the latter part of the year. This con- 
sisted in alterations of the Constitution and By-Laws, by which 
a body of Councillors are to be elected by the Society, in place 
of the old board composed of Committees in charge of depart- 
ments. The title of Custodian was changed to that of Curator, 
and the control of the Library, Museum, and Publications placed 
in the hands of committees of five each, to be appointed by the 
Council. These changes are the final expression of a series of 
causes, which began before the writer came into office, and 
have continued to demand more and more of our attention every 
year. The Constitution and By-laws did not express the actual 
condition of affairs in the Museum, and our Council was selected 
in accordance with the provisions of a law which kept the Society 
from receiving the benefit of the advice of many of its oldest and 
most experienced members. The Committees had long ceased, 
Avith feAV exceptions, to do any service for the Museum, or to have 
any influence upon the departments nominally under their charge. 
The changes really occasioned no important revolution, and excited 
so little interest among the active members of the Society that 
the discussions with regard to them Avere Avliolly confined to 
technicalities. 
