WCP2265

[1]¹

Univ. Libr.

Cambridge.

15^th [January 1870].²

My dear Sir

I cannot refrain from writing to you about your very valuable letter in "Nature"³ which I hope will be taken up by others & continued by yourself — who they got to do the editorial I cannot imagine — but he obviously failed to understand anything — I think individual effort would not do — we could not collect elephants [2] as amateurs — but societies & private endowments like Hospitals would grow up directly if there is any real value in this Natural History knowledge— & if not we certainly don't want taxing for it. The only institution I know doing real good — spend but little — & is purely private in its origin — the "Smithsonian". The printed book department of the Museum should be [3] most useful — if only they were restrained from fancy prices for Caxton⁴ & Wynkyn de Worde⁵ — as all classes are appealed to in the formation of a library. There can be no doubt that if the Museum was fully up to the time & had everything studied & arranged — & the duplicates sent over the country it would receive countless donations — at Paris they naturally receive nothing now.

[4] I fully believe that we want to put forward the voluntary part of science now just as the religious people stick out for the "offertory" & that while advanced people want to own the Church from the state with one hand, they should want to unite the state & Science with the other is to me monstrous[.]

Yours vy ty | G R Crotch⁶ [signature]