Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 35.djvu/117

Rh obtained by careful management of the moths at the time of laying the eggs. A vigorous moth will usually lay four or five hundred eggs. When the laying is terminated the peasants examine the cards, and, if there are any vacant places, attach a moth, by pins through its wings, so that the eggs may be deposited in the right place.—Abridged from the Journal of the Society of Arts.



OTWITHSTANDING its size, prosperity, and luxury, the commercial metropolis of the United States has been hitherto a less fruitful soil for the rise and growth of humanistic and scientific institutions of learning, and museums, than Boston, Washington, Philadelphia, and, through its university, Baltimore. Movements, donations, and beginnings for the building up of such institutions have not been wanting, but they have usually been hindered by the predominance of mercantile interests and tendencies, unfortunate starts, misadministration, seizure by political aspirants, or lack of competent, skilled, unselfish management, and have fallen short of their intended and possible aims. Centenarian Columbia College, with its professional branch schools, has been left far behind by Harvard, Yale, and Johns Hopkins universities. The Astor and Lenox libraries can not compete with those of other cities of like importance with New York, and are surpassed by libraries in Boston and Washington. The Museum of Natural History in Central Park has only recently acquired importance and value; and the Art Museum has not till within a short time, by means of a few large bequests and gifts, overcome its previous failures. Ethnographical, zoölogical, botanical, and pharmacological museums are, except for the sporadic collections in scientific institutions, and for the ethnographic collection in the Historical Society, not existent, nor have we a botanical and zoological garden. The museums of the medical schools do not exceed the measure of demonstration objects, and the small pharmacological collection of the College of Pharmacy is one of the most neglected and insignificant of all.

The creation of higher institutions of learning and of scientific collections has hitherto been left for the most part to private enterprise and munificence; the latter has, as everywhere else in our country, accomplished much in New York that is good and useful, and has given large sums. But the givers have too often lacked correct understanding, and have failed to secure the qualified and experienced agents that were needed in order to put their rich 