As an investigator of Nature and of Nature’s laws he is materially 
represented here by right of eminent achievement. Let us as men of 
science feel proud that Franklin’s fame as a philosopher did much to 
win for Franklin the diplomatist such useful consideration and respect 
as led to final success. 
Many of those you honor today had moral and temperamental 
peculiarities which more or less influenced their lives and are common 
to men of science. Most of them cared little about making money; 
still less about keeping it. Franklin on the contrary dreaded poverty; 
was careful in business, made fruitful investments and died rich; never- 
theless like the typical man of science he refused to make money out of 
his discoveries, or to protect his inventions by patents. In him the man 
of science, unselfish, free from money greed, seemed to exist apart 
from all those other men who went to the making of the many-minded 
Franklin. In another way he was singularly unlike such typical men 
of science as Henry, in physics, and Leidy, in natural history. When 
Franklin made a discovery, his next thought was as to what practical 
use it could be put. If he made some novel observation of nature, he 
asked himself at once how he could make it serve his fellow men. ‘The 
great reapers of the harvest of truth commonly leave the inventor to 
make practical use of their unregarded thought. 
Leaving the wide land to do justice to Franklin, the model citizen 
and great diplomatist, here we crown with the assured verdict of posterity 
Franklin, the man of pure science. Here we welcome him to this goodly 
fellowship of those who communed with Nature and read the secrets 
of the Almighty Maker. 
ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. 
Mr. President, Gentlemen: 
His Excellency, the German Ambassador, whom heavy official 
duties retain at Washington, has requested me to represent him on this 
occasion and to express to you his hearty congratulations on this event 
on which through Mr. Jesup’s generous munificence this commemora- 
tive tribute is paid to the world’s great masters of science, a day on 
which this magnificent museum of natural history has received a dona- 
tion which will awake a solemn sense of reverence and make this abode 
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