116 PROCEEDINGS OF THE REGENTS. 



unselfish devotion to their welfare, and sustained in their worthy 

 ambition after they left these halls by his persistent and eftective 

 friendship, we should have a record of quiet, unostentatious benefi- 

 cence, that would distance and belittle many life-works of world- 

 wide and long-enduring fame." 



President Felton was in his feelings and opinions, like the greater 

 part of scholars, a conservative, not without sympathy with forward 

 movements in society, but led by his tastes and acquaintance with 

 the past to look with suspicion on sudden changes in the established 

 order of things. In a similar spirit he showed no mercy towards 

 what he regarded as false pretensions to science. It will not soon be 

 forgotten with what zeal he followed up the spiritualists, putting their 

 claims to the test, driving them from point to point, and exposing 

 what he considered to be intentional fraud. In his political principles 

 he may be described as a conservative whig, a friend and admirer of 

 Daniel Webster. In his religious faith he was a Unitarian: Dr. Pea- 

 body characterizes him as "reverent and devout,~loving the Word 

 and Ordinances of God, meekly yielding himself to the teaching and 

 leading of the Saviour, strong in the hope that is full of immortality." 



He was twice married; the first time in 1838, to Miss Mary Whit- 

 ney, who died in April, 1845, and again in "September, 1846, to Miss 

 Mary L. Gary, who survives him. Ho has left five children. 



Such is a brief sketch of one of the recently deceased regents of the 

 Smithsonian Institution* — a man who, by his industry and vigor of 

 mind, made himself ; a man whose genial nature and social qualities 

 created friends for him on every side ; a man who to the highest 

 attainments in one department united in an uncommon degree a large 

 and liberal acquaintance with the circle of knowledge ; a man of fine 

 tastes, of most kindly sympathies, of strict uprightness ; a man who 

 adorned his professorship by the best qualities of a teacher, and the 

 mingled kindness and firmness of a wise disciplinarian, and who brought 

 to the presidential chair of Harvard the firm purpose to raise the 

 standard of that ancient University in everything that was good and 

 noble. 



- President Felton took a lively interest in the Institution, and actively participated in 

 the proceedings of the Board. His communications appearing in the reports of the Board 

 are as follows : In the report for 1857, p. 79, a report on the present of a book from Greece ; 

 p. 82, one oa the purchase of Stanley's Indian gallery; p. 88, one on Professor Henry's 

 communication relative to the telegraph ; and in the report for 1859, p. 104, a eulogy on 

 Professor W. W. Turner, and, p. 106, one on Washington Irving. In addition to which 

 he gave several lectures on Greece, and made a number of confidential reports on com- 

 munications relative to linguistics, which had been referred to him for examination by the 

 Secretary. 



