We publish the following from F. A. Chase, Professor of Natural Science in Fisk University. He pleads, of course, for Fisk, yet his plea holds good for all our higher institutions. We commend it to our friends. The American Missionary Association could make good use, say, of a "_One Hundred Thousand Dollar Fund_" for the scientific departments of its mission schools. It may be that some one whom God has blessed with riches is waiting for just such an opportunity as this particular branch of our great field opens. Special funds for a designated institution, to be used for the promotion of Christian science, as outlined by Prof. Chase, are earnestly solicited: Are there not some friends of the work among the Freedmen who can appreciate the need of a teacher for a _complete scientific outfit_? The race has been kept during slavery from all knowledge of science. Their trades and occupations being of the roughest, and having ignorant parentage, nothing has been learned from the business of life, nor in answer to the questioning of childhood and youth. There is no race now admitted to the privileges of liberal education so barren of scientific ideas and so lacking in scientific spirit. Those who know this people solely from their fine literary and oratorical abilities have no conception of their great deficiency in science. It does not need to be said that, until this is remedied, they cannot be expected to hold their own in a scientific age, and in competition with a scientific race. Though our course of study is brought down to the very minimum of college work, and the instruction is of a most elementary character, still there are eight sciences to be taught. But this teaching, to be successful, requires the use of illustrative material. With the general introduction of illustrations in our modern schools began the rapid progress in science that distinguishes our age. All true teachers of science affirm with one voice that this aid is indispensable even with the most favored races. In botany, zoology, mineralogy and geology we need specimens--the great type examples on which classification is founded. In physiology and anatomy we need, in default of _material_, cheap models. In natural philosophy, chemistry and astronomy we need apparatus--not the costly instruments of precision, but plain, cheap pieces, that are fitted to illustrate and in some cases demonstrate the many and various principles that are taught.