The institutions thus aided are of great value but no one of 

 them as a whole equals ours in scientific importance or intrinsic 

 worth, or is better entitled to public favor. 



I mention these facts in no spirit of envy or detraction. We 

 are all gratified to know that the number of laborers in the vast 

 field in which we work is everywhere increasing. The encourage- 

 ment extended to them by State governments implies that the 

 cultivation of the natural sciences is becoming more and more 

 wisely appreciated, and more widely diffused. 



I will detain you no longer. 



Rev. E. R. Beadle, D.D., was introduced to the audience and 

 said, substantially, that Philadelphia had been facetiously desig- 

 nated as " a dining station on the road to New York ;" but he 

 doubted whether that was all that can be truthfully said about 

 Philadelphia. He referred to the hospitals for the sick, asylums 

 for children, retreats for the aged and indigent, and the neat and 

 comfortable domiciles provided for working people, as well as to 

 the schools, colleges, university, and expressed his belief that, 

 although not yet finished, Philadelphia is doing very well. The 

 building of the Academy of Natural Sciences is one of the works 

 yet to be done. He alluded to the popular ignorance of even the 

 simplest matters which influence the life, happiness, and comfort 

 of humanity, and said that a workshop is wanted in which young 

 people may be taught to recognize the properties and uses of nat- 

 ural objects to distinguish what is fact from what is not and be 

 trained to apply such knowledge intelligently for the benefit of 

 themselves and of mankind. 



Prof. J. Aitken Meigs, M.D., of the Jefferson Medical College, 

 was next introduced and delivered the following address: 



Three-score years, heavy-laden with the endless series of changes, 

 the thrilling narrative of private joys and sorrows, hopes and fears? 

 the extraordinary record of national triumphs and social defeats, 

 and the wondrous historv of the Great achievements and miserable 

 failures that go to make up the life-history of two generations of 

 men, have been forever engulfed in the illimitable ocean of the 

 past, since the occurrence of that event the happy development of 

 which you this day celebrate. 



