88 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



sive miud, but to an entire and self-sacrificing devotion to tlie interests 

 of Lis work and that of others. 



" His extreme diffidence and hick of self-seeking were among his con- 

 spicuous characteristics. He was alwa.ys averse to addressing audi- 

 ences, and this is all the more remarkable to his friends, who remem- 

 ber how winning and persuasive his eloquence was when he talked in 

 the presence of a few. His ability as a talker and organizer was never 

 better seen than when, as already observed, in the presence of Con- 

 gressional committees, before whom he was summoned from year to 

 year to give reasons for his requests for money to be used in expanding 

 the work of the Fish Commission or the National Museum. He was 

 always received by the members with the heartiest welcome; and it 

 seemed that always these pushing, brusque men of business, who ordi- 

 narily rushed with the greatest haste through the routine of committee 

 work, forgot their usual huriy when Professor Baird was before them. 

 They listened attentively as long as he could be induced to talk about 

 his plans for the development of the organizations whose success he 

 had at heart. Not uufrequently they would wander from the business 

 before them as they asked him questions upon subjects which his sug- 

 gestive remarks impressed upon their attention. 



" No man was more easily approached than Professor Baird. He 

 seemed especially fond of meeting young persons, whom he immedi- 

 ately set at their ease by his geniality and frankness of manner. A 

 writer in the Ration has said: ' It seemed as if in his mind he had an 

 epitome of all the characteristics of mind and habit of each and every 

 man. No tliought of self seemed to enter into his calculations. Those 

 who felt themselves the object of his personal regard sometimes halted 

 for a moment in a comical dismay, perceiving themselves frankly moved, 

 like chessmen, in directions which they would not themselves have se- 

 lected, but an overwhelming sense of Baird's entire devotion to the 

 promotion of science, his perfect unselfishness, and his incomparable 

 good judgment, always carried the day.' 



"From his early youth until his failing strength forbade, he kept a 

 journal of his daily pursuits, and this, together with the immense piles 

 of copy-books and files of letters received, will atiord a boundless treas- 

 ure to his biographer; and when his biography is written, if it be prop- 

 erly done in accordance with the modern theory of biography-making, 

 it will form essentially a history of the natural sciences in America for 

 the past half century. 



" For many months before his death he knew that his life was drawing 

 to a close. In the summer of 1887, a few weeks before he died, he went 

 to Wood's Holl, as usual, to direct the operations of the Fish Commission. 

 Of all the tributes to his character none were more eloquent or touching 

 than one at the funeral service at Wood's Holl. The simple burial 

 service was read, and then the clergyman recited these sentences from 

 the Sermon on the Mount : ' Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain 



