446 SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD 



Professor Baird impressed me as a great organizer. 

 His interest in men was much the same as that taken by 

 a general in the officers under his command. It appeared 

 to be created by a desire to get certain work done by his 

 lieutenants, but ended in awakening in his mind an affec- 

 tionate concern for their happiness. The field before him 

 was so vast that he had need of all possible collaborators. 

 Nothing appeared to give him more satisfaction than to 

 hear of new students coming forward. 



It is too soon to estimate the value of his achievements 

 in perfecting a scheme of a national collection. But this 

 much can be temperately said, namely that the plan of 

 the magnificent museum at Washington is entirely of his 

 own creation. The difficulties which attended the formu- 

 lation of this plan were greater than is generally known. 

 On one occasion at least these would have led in any 

 other man less sagacious than himself to failure of the 

 entire conception. He came to the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion at a time when its policy was not defined. No one 

 can now estimate, as he did, the obstacles to be over- 

 come in giving shape to the materials about him, for not 

 only the apathy of the public but the opposition of men 

 of influence, both in and out of Washington, had to be 

 overcome and changed to sympathy at every step. 



Professor Baird was optimistic in his views of life; 

 judicial in temperament; liberal in religion; catholic in his 

 opinions; wise and shrewd in his conduct of affairs. He 

 had a genial vein of humor. In his literary tastes he was 

 singularly free from pedantry; and entertained a sym- 

 pathy so wide that he was the most approachable of men. 

 I have often wondered at his patience. Nothing appeared 

 to excite him. I never saw him in ill temper. To an 

 extent probably without parallel in the history of science 



