Celebration of the Fiftieth Anniversary. Iv 



thej exhaust their intellectual possessions as they have ex- 

 hausted their forests, their mines, and their soils? Or will 

 they make it part of the serious business of life to increase 

 the intellectual resources of the state? Will they learn that 

 this task is so great that it cannot be accomplished by the 

 devoted lives of a few individuals, but that many thousands 

 must give their best powers to the work ; that the continued 

 safety of the republic demands the enlistment for this service 

 of a great army of men dedicated to the pursuit of truth, in- 

 spired in their toils by a high sense of duty and of public ser- 

 vice, and sustained by the sympathy and appreciation of the 

 commonwealth ? 



In determining the right answer to these questions the in- 

 fluence of an academy like this is all important ; gathering 

 together all those in the community who are interested in 

 the development of human knowledge and power, and uniting 

 their efforts, not for the display of knowledge, of the discov- 

 eries which they may make, but for the accumulation of that 

 knowledge which may be of interest only to-day, but some 

 of which will certainly be of supreme necessity to-morrow. 

 And beyond and far above this duty is the higher function of 

 fostering and strengthening the scientific temper and the 

 scientific spirit in whose widely diffused and vigorous presence 

 in the community lie the hopes of the future. 



If an academy is to take its part in this great work well and 

 truly, it must attempt the task, as your Academy has done, 

 in a spirit even wider than that indicated by the words just 

 spoken. For if science had given to man a new knowledge 

 only, it would have fallen far short of reaching its command- 

 ing position in the worlds of thought and of life. VV^ith that 

 new knowledge it has given him a new learning ; it has en- 

 larged the charter of liberal education — the learning which 

 belongs to a freeman — adding to that learning which makes 

 a man free of human society that which confers on him the 

 freedom of the world. It has given to man a new temper in 

 which to seek and to find the truth ; has enlarged and elevated 

 his conceptions of truth, and in so doing has given him new 

 and higher standards of morals. It has given him a new 



