2 
ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. 
‘ ‘ A wondrous show ! but ab ! a show alone ! 
Where shall I grasp thee, infinite nature, where ?” 
Yet, so simple and so fascinating is this grand theme, that children 
may be charmed by it and youth find in it never-failing materials 
for wonder and delight. Longfellow happily expresses this in his 
word-picture of the childhood of the great Swiss (afterwards 
American) naturalist Agassiz:— 
And Nature, the old nurse, took 
The child upon her knee, 
Saying: “ Here is a story-book 
Thy father has written for thee.” 
“Come wander with me,” she said, 
“ Into regions yet untrod ; 
And read what is still unread 
In the manuscripts of God.” 
And he wandered away and away 
With Nature, the dear old nurse, 
Who sang to him night and day 
The rhymes of the universe. 
And whenever the way seemed long, 
Or his heart began to fail, 
She would sing a more wonderful song, 
Or tell a more wonderful tale. 
In truth, the subject of the Laws of Nature is many-sided, and 
may quite fittingly he considered by the members of a Natural 
History Society, and may quite properly he introduced to their 
notice in the few paragraphs of a modest address by their president. 
Indeed, remembering how instinctive is the desire for natural 
knowledge, and how rarely the questions of children respecting 
nature can he answered satisfactorily by their elders, we may well 
ask what branch of knowledge stands more in need of intelligent 
home-teaching, and who so appropriately can prompt a desire for, 
and in various ways promote this teaching, as the officers and 
members of societies founded for the study of nature and for 
the dissemination of truth respecting nature. There are nearly 
two hundred Natural History Societies in Great Britain and Ireland, 
most of them limiting the area of their work to the study of the 
nature of the animals, vegetables, and minerals of their respective 
districts, as well as to the record of the amounts of rain and sun¬ 
shine with which they may be favoured, and of the varying 
pressure of the air, whether at rest or in motion. The injunction 
which animated the sightless yet far-seeing patriot recently 
snatched from us, and which now eloquently appeals to us from 
his tombstone in a Cambridgeshire churchyard, “ Speak unto the 
people that they go forward,’’ may, as regards progress in the 
knowledge of nature, nobly animate the officers and members of 
