My dear Henslow

I am very much obliged for your note & the direction of the Pyrotechnist. Hearing all the things you do for your Parish, I am not at all surprised that you have discontinued the Fireworks:—¹

You formerly asked me for specimens for Ipswich,² I have consequently packed up 20 to 25 specimens of Cirripedia of the several leading genera, & have named them: I have chiefly selected British species. They possess little value, excepting from being correctly named. In a few weeks’ time, my volume by the Ray Soc. will be published, & I can then send you proofs of my Ten Plate,³ if worth having. I wish I could offer anything better to the Ipswich Soc^y., but I have long ago distributed my collections.

I am sorry to trouble you but will you tell me whether you or the Ipswich Mus: have any place of call in London to which I c^d. address my parcel, carriage paid, or shall I send it direct to Ipswich or to you?— At the same time, will you tell me (& it is the most important of my queries on Fire Works) what sum of money will procure a fair village display?⁴

Now that my children are growing up & I think of educational processes, I often reflect over your inimitably (as it appears to me) good plan of teaching correct, concise language & accurate observation, namely by making your pupils describe leaves &c. I never profited myself by this, but very often I have wished I had. Has it ever occurred to you, (I have often wished for something of the kind) that a most useful volume might be published, with woodcut outlines, & on separate pages well-weighed, concise descriptions in Saxon, & not scientific English. What a habit it would give to youths of thinking of the meaning of words, & what powers of expressing themselves! Compare such habits with that of making wretched Latin verses. I did not intend to write so much; but it is an old wish of mine, that you or someone would undertake such a task.

My dear Henslow | Yours most truly | C. Darwin

I have no ideas on the arrangement of Museums, never having at all attended to the subject.⁵