Transcribe Ward, Henry A. Letter to Baird, Spencer Fullerton (1882-04-20)

my library and his own have furnished him, He is very ready and exact with his pencil. Finally, he is thorough ly reliable in his attention and devotion to his work. He has not been with me really a workman, either in Taxidermy or Osteology. This simply because I could not afford him time for that. But he understands both of these departments thoroughly well in all their detail. He can install for you (if you wish it) an Atelier of skeleton preparing and mounting, in a most perfect manner. This is a point where I speak with certain experience. I hardly think that he needs (unless for the general principle) any period of probation with you. I had not known that you had a place open in osteology, or I should have given Mr; Lucas a letter of introduction and recommend- ation to you as I did with Mr. Hornaday. I had been trying for a place for him at Princeton and was intending to talk to Prof. Bickmore about him when I went to New York.

  And if I thus strive for positions for my best young men

as I have in past and shall in future, it is simply because it seems to me that I owe it to them and their future to try and aid them in a better career than I can hold out to them in Rochester. If Lucas were as old as I am - his days of scientific promise past - I should feel very different about it and should try in every way to keep with me a man who is so </u important >