25 



Through the earnest and untiring efforts of its members, aided 

 by the wise munificence of many generous patrons of science in 

 this city, the Academy is to-day enabled to lay the corner-stone 

 of a larger edifice, and thus to inaugurate a new and still brighter 

 era in its existence. Assisted by the liberal and continued sup- 

 port of the citizens of Philadelphia, it is destined, in its efforts to 

 promote and popularize knowledge, to become more than ever the 

 pioneer of advanced science, more than ever a great school for the 

 higher culture of the mind, more than ever the exponent of that 

 intellectual revolution which is, at the present time, slowly but 

 surely changing the aspect of societ} 7 . 



Professor H. C. Wood, Jr., M.D., of the University of Pennsyl- 

 vania, was introduced, and delivered the following address : 



Ladies and Gentlemen : Standing here to-day on this platform 

 in presence of some of my masters in science, there comes upon 

 me a flood of reminiscences from the past, and in the uncertain 

 twilight of the future I seem to see a vision fair and fruitful, 

 though misty and uncertain in its outline. 



The tiny doors which close the cells where memories sleep are 

 flung wide open, and scenes of the long-ago come upon me as 

 sharp and clear as though in the light of the present. It seems 

 but yesterday, when, a lad of some ten summers, leading my little 

 brother by the hand, with eager, anxious heart, I rang the front- 

 door bell of a house in Arch Street, near Fourth, and asked for 

 one of those who now sit upon this platform. Well do I remember 

 the disappointment of the final answer to my entreaties that I was 

 too young to he given tickets to the Academy of Natural Sciences. 

 Childish griefs and childish joys, though they seem to us trifles 

 light as air, are } T et real as life, and the impression of the choking 

 disappointment of that hour time will not efface. 



Again I see myself, now in advancing youth, armed with a letter 

 of introduction, ascending the steps of a modest dwelling in 

 Sansom Street, wondering, as I ring, how strange it is that so 

 great a man should live in so small a house. Little then did I 

 know the truth of the saying of the prose poet, Ruskin, " That the 

 world pays least for its best work." 



The word of the master of the little house had, however, power 

 enough to unlock that chamber of mysteries of my childish fancy, 



