xxxiv OBITUARY NOTICES OF MEMBERS DECEASED. 



any other man is due the credit of first organizing the reform senti- 

 ment in Philadelphia into a body capable of real work." 



Later, when he was more deeply engrossed in his splendid lit- 

 erary work, although not in good health, he helped in spirit and in 

 the most substantial way the cause of good government. His deep 

 interest in his native city was maintained till the end of his life. 

 Keenly alive to its honor, he set an example of civic duty that is 

 unfortunately not common in men of his type of mind. He realized 

 better than most of us that good government can only be achieved 

 by the harmonious and hearty cooperation of all classes of the com- 

 munity in civic atTairs. 



The same industry that had made him as a mere boy a contrib- 

 utor of scientific articles to leading journals, and enabled him to 

 learn from his father's life-long devotion to scientific research, in 

 maturer years made him a welcome contributor to the leading news- 

 papers and periodicals on the topics that appealed to the public, for 

 he was a recognized authority on all public questions that he dis- 

 cussed. 



As late as 1897 he drafted for his associates in Philadelphia an 

 admirable appeal to the Senate of the United States for the prompt 

 ratification of the treaty with Great Britain, providing for the arbi- 

 tration of international questions when not settled by the ordinary 

 process of diplomacy. In it he showed his mastery of large and 

 important issues, and put in clear, crisp, significant sentences the 

 reasons that justified a new departure in the interests of peace. 



A complete bibliography of all his contributions on public topics 

 would be a very long one, and would bring home to his fellow- 

 citizens a realizing sense of how useful Air. Lea was to them, to the 

 community in which he liverl, to the state, and to the nation, for all 

 of which he labored with such unselfish zeal. 



An interest in public atTairs and an ability to discuss them on the 

 highest plane, may have been inherited from his grandfather, 

 Mathew Carey, a man of mark in the early days of the Republic. 

 Put the grandson was not onl}- a successful publisher and a man 

 active in affairs, he was also a diligent student, and even during the 

 trying days of the Civil War and in the turmoil of discussion of 

 municipal questions, in the (juiet of his own study he was accumu- 



