224 PROCEEDINGS: BOSTON SOCIETY NATURAL HISTORY. 
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The urgent need of means Avitli, which to do work has been 
w 0 
insisted on in these reports year after year ever since the first year 
of the Curator’s connection with the Society, and yet in spite of 
this, and often repeated appeals in more public ways, the impression 
is still prevalent in Boston that we are not in need of money. 
Another impression that needs correction is still more unfavorable 
to our progress. This is the prevailing opinion that we are not an 
educational institution. In spite of all the lecturing to teachers and 
to students and to the public that has taken place systematically 
and constantly in this building for thirty years past, and in defiance 
of more or less frequent newspaper notices of the kind of work done 
here, people at large regard us as a Society whose functions, out¬ 
side of a museum that is open to the public for two days in the 
week, are strictly private and for the benefit of members alone. 
These false impressions lead wealthy people who are continually 
giving in other directions to neglect us and even to say, if requested 
to give, that a Society ought to take care of itself. A few years 
ago I heard one of the most prominent Boston merchants and lib¬ 
eral givers to the cause of education say the same thing about the 
Institute of Technology. Iiis complete conversion to the opposite 
side within a few years leads me to hope that a brighter future may 
be in store for us. Certainly nothing can be more without justifica¬ 
tion than that an institution like ours, devoted to the encourage¬ 
ment of research through its publications and to the diffusion of 
knowledge through its museum and lectures, can be self-supporting. 
It might be, if a good proportion of the citizens of Boston would be 
willing to tax themselves to the amount of our annual dues; but 
when only a very minute proportion of the citizens is willing to do 
this, it is practically absurd to expect us to maintain ourselves by 
any such means. At present the money for membership is all used 
up, and in fact is not sufficient to meet our annual appropriation for 
publications alone. ' 
In view of this general neglect of our needs it is pleasant to notice 
that this vear we have received a donation of ten thousand dollars 
that the Rev. R. C. Waterston left by his will, to be paid after the 
decease of Mrs. Waterston. Mr. Waterston was elected a member 
in January, 1860, and his death occurred Feb. 21, 1898. For about 
twenty years he was a helpful member of this Society, and he was 
selected to give one of the addresses at the celebration of our fif¬ 
tieth anniversary in 1880. During the last ten vears or so of his 
life, his increasing disabilities kept him from very active participa- 
