202 Centenary Commemoration, 1799-1899. [Juno 5, 



kindly expressions in the name of your guests, and especially of those 

 from America ; but I may at least feel that no one can speak with 

 more sincerity of the pleasure those from the United States have in 

 being here to-night, and in testifying to their grateful remembrance 

 of all that American science owes to this, its mother-country. 



We cannot forget that it was from the heart of the English 

 people that those earliest colonists of New England came, who in 

 the last century, in token of their ancestry, produced a Franklin and 

 a Kumford, or forget that it is strictly true that American science, 

 during the generation that followed the foundation of this Institution, 

 grew up under almost exclusively English influence. 



All your guests, without distinction of country, appreciate at its 

 high value the example which this Institution has set, in uniting 

 original research of the very greatest importance with the communi- 

 cation of its results in a form understanded of the people ; but we in 

 America are especially glad to remember that it was an English man 

 of science, James Smithson, who, following your example of this two- 

 fold purpose, loft his fortune to the United States to, in his own 

 brief and pregnant words, found " an establishment for the increase 

 and diffusion of knowledge among men." 



The American Government accepted the trust in a way without 

 precedent, placing by organic law the President of the United States 

 at the head of the Institution, and giving the regency of its affairs 

 to a board representing whatever is most eminent in the councils of the 

 nation, under whose direction it has pursued the same double objects 

 as your Institution, both of the increase of knowledge by original 

 research, and its diffusion throughout the world. It has done this 

 with a faithful regard to the wishes of its founder, who died before 

 the fruition of his large purpose, so that this modest man of science 

 did not live to see in the Smithsonian Institution his work enduring 

 in an honoured name. 



The American founder of your great Institution was more fortu- 

 nate, in seeing at least the beginning of his work, but even of him it 

 might be almost said that he " builded better than he knew," for while 

 we are glad to remember that Eumford has thus associated his name 

 with your early history, we must agree that if the seed he planted had 

 not been sown in so good a soil, his earlier plan would not have grown 

 into what the years have wrought, not only in bringing the most 

 eminent contributions to the sum of human knowledge, but in their 

 publication under royal patronage, for it is thus, in the worthiest 

 sense that word may bear, continued under the gracious lady whoso 

 birthday has just been celebrated with rejoicings on both sides of the 

 Ocean, which here, perhaps more than in any other land, has led all 

 that is best in social life to take an interest in the exhibition of the 

 results that such men as your Young, your Davy, your Faraday and 

 your Tyndall have wrought. 



It is known to all, on both sides of the Atlantic, that the work of 

 these men is being continued by one who has added a new element 



