THE STORY OF AN ENTOMOLOGIST 



plaque to be inserted in the wall of Burlington House. The 

 inscription bore testimony not only to the great admiration o£ 

 German men of science for English men of science, but of 

 Germany for England, and stated further that nothing could 

 ever disturb their most friendly relations. This was only two 

 years before the outbreak of the World War. It is a curious 

 fact that the famous "Manifesto of the Intellectuals," which 

 was sent out by German professors in the autumn of 1914, and 

 which insisted that Germany was attacked on all sides and was 

 only defending herself, was signed by every one of the twelve 

 German delegates to the Royal Society Celebration of 1912. I 

 received one of these manifestos from a German colleague, and 

 am keeping it largely in memory of this incident. 



The galleries of the great hall were filled with beautiful 

 English women in colorful summer costume, and the whole 

 scene was of the greatest charm. Although I am writing this 

 in Paris in 1932, I can see it before my eyes as though it were 

 yesterday. 



On Tuesday night a banquet took place at the Guild Hall. 

 The delegates were all present, as well as hundreds of men 

 prominent in most walks of life in England. Whenever one 

 glanced around the assemblage, his eye fell upon some man 

 of world-wide fame. At the conclusion of the dinner there was 

 an extraordinary list of toasts. I was impressed again by the 

 different significance of the word toastmaster in England. In 

 the United States the toastmaster is an important functionary. 

 He may be very good, but usually he is very bad. He is often 

 too long-winded, and we have all known him to make the 

 speech which we expected from the speaker on whom he was 

 calling. In England, however, the toastmaster is literally an 

 announcer of toasts. In other words, the business of the toast- 

 master is simply to toastmaster. On this occasion he was a 



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