xxii PROCEEDINGS OF THE CENTENARY MEETING. 



It was an extraordinary epoch in the history of the Academy, the beginning 

 of its second half century, and the youth was associated with a stimulating group 

 of men, including Leidy, Cope, Conrad, Try on, Stewardson, Lea, Slack, Rand, 

 Warner, Vaux, Cassin, Heerman, Meigs, Gabb, and Wilson, all men of marked 

 individuality, many of whom had made permanent records as leaders of science 

 in America. 



Continuing, Dr. Nolan gave his impressions of some of his contemporaries 

 of later date: Allen, Horn, LeConte, Meehan, Warner, Hawkins, Ruschenberger, 

 Redfield, Ryder, McCook, Heilprin, Chapman, Isaac Jones Wistar, and Arthur 

 Erwin Brown. He adopted a more intimate tone than would be desirable in a 

 printed record in the belief that such confidences would not be objected to by 

 his auditors, many of whom were familiar with the work of the men whom he 

 was describing. 2 



In the one hundred years of the Academy's history four men had stood out 

 prominently, with, of course, many associates, as dominant in its material and 

 intellectual advancement. These were Thomas Say, Samuel George Morton, 

 Joseph Leidy, and the present chief executive. The work of Say, Morton, and 

 Leidy formed part of the history of the Academy, and if an impression were 

 desired of the accomplishments of Samuel Gibson Dixon his auditors had but 

 to look around them. 



Closing his recollections the Secretary was distressed to remember the names 

 of the many dear friends whom, for lack of time, he was forced to leave in the 

 undesirable class "and others." 



In conclusion he remarked: 



Those whom I knew during the first years of association with the Academy 

 are nearly all dead. The old building, if it still existed, would be full of ghosts, 

 and even in the present halls, in the dusk of the winter days, dear shades encounter 

 me in the alcoves and passage ways and remind me of the time when I too shall 

 be a recollection and a tradition. 



But in the meantime it is with a feeling of profound gratitude that I bear 

 testimony to the kindly patience and sustaining encouragement of those who are 

 still with me and who relieve the daily task almost entirely of stress and strain. 



For obvious reasons I cannot deal in personalities in the case of my living 

 contemporaries, but I am at liberty to say that they are worthily taking the 

 place of those who have labored so loyally for the advancement of the Academy 

 and who, we are not forbidden by the highest reason to hope, are now rejoicing 

 in this splendid commemoration of their labors. Had they lived when men 

 cherished the same truths under different formulae their motto, as I have said 

 elsewhere, would have been, Ad majorem Dei gloriam. 



May the men who come after us be as zealous and as disinterested in the 

 development of truth as were those whom I have been so ineffectively remem- 

 bering tonight, so that when the second Centenary is celebrated it also may be 



2 Much of this information and more of the same character will be found in Dr. Nolan's History of the 

 Academy, to be published in connection with the Centenary Celebration. 



