REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 87 



oil' his hilt in lionor of the ' first lisii-culturist of the world,' as he de- 

 lighted to cull him. He also insisted that any who might be in his 

 company shonld pay the same respect to Professor Baird. Indeed, I 

 am not snrc that the late Emperor Frederick, at that time Crown Prince 

 and protector of the German lisheries, did not do homage in this way 

 to the American philanthropist. After Professor Baird's denth a cir- 

 cnlar was issued by the Germkn Fishery Union which contained a most 

 appreciative eulogy. 



" His ever ready assistance to his fellow-workers in Europe won for 

 him their deep regard. Mr. K. Bowdler Sharpe, of the British Museum, 

 writes as follows to Nature : ' As chief of the Smithsonian Institutiou 

 Professor Baird possessed a power of conferring benefits to the world 

 of science exercised by few directors of public museums, and the man- 

 ner in which he has utilized these powers has resulted not only in the 

 wonderful success of the United States National Museum under his 

 direction, but in the enrichment of many other museums. We know 

 by experience that the British Museum is indebted to Professor Baird 

 beyond measure. We had only to express our wants, and immediately 

 every effort was made to supply all the desiderata in our ornithological 

 collection.' 



" Professor Baird was the most modest of men. He seemed never to 

 care for jjublic recognition. In speaking of any honors which he had 

 received he appeared to deprecate what had been done, as if ashamed 

 of the attentions, feeling himself unworthy to receive them. 



" He once remarked to me, some years before his death, that he was 

 satisfied that no man's life was of such importance to the people among 

 whom he lived that he could not shortl^^ be replaced by another who 

 would fully fill his place. As I looked at the man before me, a giant in 

 body and in mind, a treasury of untransferable experience and wisdonj, 

 I thought to myself that if this judgment was a true one (which 1 did 

 not believe, nor, at his heart, 1 suppose, did he), in him at least there 

 was an exception. I speak not now of his official usefulness alone, but 

 of the broader and more essential relationships which he held to science 

 and to humanity. 



" Such a man has a thousand sides, each most ftimiliar to a few, and 

 perhaps entirely strange to tiie greater part of those who know him. 



<' Future historians of American science will be better able than are 

 we to estimate justly the value of the contributions to scientific litera- 

 ture which are enumerated in his bibliography; but no one not living 

 in the present can form an accurate idea of the personal influence of a 

 leader upon his associates and upon the progress of thought in his 

 si)ecial dei)artment, nor can such an intiuence as this well be set down 

 in words. This inlluence is a[)paienfly due not oidy to extraordinary 

 skill in organization, to great i>ower ot application and concentration 

 of thought constantly applied, and to a i>hilosophical ami compreiien- 



