These are the palmiest days in the eventful history of physical and observational astronomy. Along the whole line of professional and amateur observation substantial progress is being made, but in certain new directions, and in some old ones, too, the advance is very rapid. As never before, public interest is alive to the attractions and value of the work of astronomers. The science itself now appeals to a constituency of students and readers daily increasing in numbers and importance. Evidence of this gratifying fact is easily obtained. There is at the libraries an ever-growing demand for standard astronomical works, some of them by no means intended to be of a purely popular character. Some of the most influential and conservative magazines on both sides of the Atlantic now find it to be in their interest to devote pages of space to the careful discussion of new theories, or to the results of the latest work of professional observers. Even the daily press in some cities has caught the infection, if infection it may be called. There are in New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and other centers of population on this continent leading newspapers which, every week or so, publish columns of original matter contributed by writers evidently able to place before their readers in an attractive form articles dealing accurately, and yet in a popular vein, with the many-sided subject of astronomy. In scientific matters generally, there is abroad in this and other countries a spirit of inquiry, never more apparent than at the present time. Readers and thinkers may, no doubt, be numbered by thousands. So far, however, as astronomy is concerned, the majority of readers and thinkers is composed of non-observers, most of whom believe they must be content with studying the theoretical side of the subject only. They labor under the false impression that unless they have telescopes of large aperture and other costly apparatus, the pleasures attaching to practical work are denied them. The great observatories, to which every intelligent eye is directed, are, in a measure, though innocently enough, responsible for this. Anticipation is ever on tiptoe. People are naturally awaiting the latest news from the giant refracting and reflecting telescopes of the day. Under these circumstances, it may be that the services rendered, and capable of being rendered, to science by smaller apertures may be overlooked, and, therefore, I ask to be permitted to put in a modest plea for the common telescope. What little I shall have to say will be addressed to you more for the purpose of arousing interest in the subject than for communicating to you any information of a novel or special character.