894 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts , and Letters . 
deed is he who leaves the college knowing how to educate him¬ 
self. Scientific observation and experiment have an educa¬ 
tional value that should commend them to those who have learn¬ 
ed that lesson and who can thus aid science while they improve 
their powers. The influence of the study of nature upon char¬ 
acter I believe to be considerable. Contact with nature tends 
to preserve the primal qualities that, characterize those of whom 
it was said “of such are the kingdom of Heaven,” as well as to 
preserve something of the physical freshness and buoyancy of 
youth. 
Research as a profession, aside from teaching, is as yet but 
little known in Wisconsin ; but it will doubtless increase, and 
no matter toward what economic ends it may be directed, it 
will add new facts, open new fields, and contribute to the ad¬ 
vancement of science. We have all known, now and then, men 
and women who had special aptitudes in certain departments 
of science, but who were unable to use them for the advance¬ 
ment of science because of lack of education. We may well 
believe that with the more general spread of education a larg¬ 
er number of those so gifted will be able to use their gifts in 
the furtherance of science. The material development of our 
state has been such as to bring, here and there, large fortunes, 
and we see from time to time young men and! young women 
coming upon the field of life for whom the necessities and lux¬ 
uries are provided for the present and the future. The at¬ 
tempts of many of the members of this class to adapt them¬ 
selves to their condition have been pitiful. To many such, the 
work in which the Academy is engaged offers the opportunity 
for a useful and happy life. Most of them have been sent to 
college. May we not look to our institutions of higher educa¬ 
tion to give to some of these an enthusiasm, a purpose, that will 
carry them across the calm and languorous seas of ease, not de¬ 
tained by the fair isles of luxury or driven from their course by 
the storms of excitement, on and on to islands and archipelagoes 
and perchance continents as yet uncharted on the map of hu¬ 
man knowledge ? Theodore Roosevelt is reported to have said 
that he who does not need to devote his time and energies to the 
