THOMAS TRACY BOUVE: MEMORIAL MEETING. 
229 
that time lie had been engaged in aiding the development of our 
Society for a period of about sixty years, a length of active service 
far exceeding that recorded of any other person. The year of his 
election was 1834. 
Strong men are apt to be wanting in pliability; their capacity for 
concentration in one direction narrows the mental prospective and 
they finally lose sight of all roads to success except those by which 
they themselves have travelled such a goodly distance into the future. 
The capacity that works devotedly and for years in one direction 
and with a certain set of surroundings, and yet is neither captured 
nor finally enslaved by routine, has cosmopolitan qualities and judi¬ 
cial strength which nature gives but to few of her children. No one 
who was intimate with Mr. Bouve, especially in 1870, but will bear 
testimony to his possession of this rare gift. In that year there was 
a contest in this Societv between those who believed in the older 
«/ 
modes of conducting its affairs and of caring for, classifying, and 
arranging the collections, and those who took the position that the 
whole system was not sufficiently scientific, and that voluntary labor 
could not be relied upon as a continuous dependence. Mr. Bouve 
naturally and at first took the side of his older associates, but 
within a few months became a warm supporter of the new move¬ 
ment. 
This change of position really occurred a short time after his elec¬ 
tion to the Presidency in 1870, although no publication of his opin¬ 
ions came before the public until 1880, when he wrote the History 
of the Society. 
This history begins with an account of our predecessor, the Lin- 
naean Society, which had been unable to continue in successful career 
notwithstanding the accumulation of interesting collections. Mr. 
Bouv6 gives an explanation of this failure in the following words, 
which are so full of experience that they cannot be repeated too 
often:— 
“ No society organized for the pursuit of the study of natural his¬ 
tory should undertake to form a large museum, unless it is endowed 
with means fully adequate for the constant care and preservation of 
its collections, either through support of the government, or from 
funded property that will yield income sufficient for such purpose. 
Large collections require enormous expense for preservation from 
destructive agencies, in the necessary supplies of jars, bottles, 
alcohol, and other articles absolutely required for use; and for the 
