l6 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS. 



spreading knowledge, was an invitation to give a course of lectures 

 before the Royal Institution of Great Britain. These lectures, with 

 various communications to learned bodies, and especially to the 

 Institute of France, increased his international reputation, which 

 took shape in a most remarkable series of honors. 



A brief summary of these shows the high place which his name 

 holds in the annals of science : 



From Oxford came the degree of D. C. L. ; from Cambridge, that 

 of D. Sc. ; from Harvard, Princeton, Michigan, and Wisconsin uni- 

 versities and elsewhere, that of LL. D. ; from the American Academy 

 of Sciences, the Henry Draper Medal ; from the Royal Society of 

 London, the Rumford Medal ; from the American Academy of Arts 

 and Sciences, their Rumford Aledal ; from the Institute of France, 

 the Janssen ]\Iedal, and from the Astronomical Society of France, 

 their special medal. He was made a foreign member of the Royal 

 Society of London, a corresponding member of the Institute of 

 France, a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society of London, a 

 member of the Royal Institution of London, of the Academia dei 

 Lincei at Rome, of the National Academy of Sciences, and of other 

 bodies eminent in the scientific world. 



In the midst of these honors, gained by original investigation, his 

 feeling in behalf of the popularization of science continued, and one 

 of its manifestations gives a curious revelation of his heart. Quiet, 

 undemonstrative, reserved as he was — even to a fault, as many 

 thought — and even though he had no family of his own, he had a 

 deep love for little children, and this love was shown in a way 

 most effective and original. He provided in the Museum of the 

 Smithsonian a room containing objects in various fields of natural 

 research which would please children and awaken their interest. 

 Even this room showed his ingenuity ; it became deeply interesting 

 not merely to the children, but to their parents and grandparents, 

 and to widen this interest he published an article — of all places in 

 the world — in the St. Nicholas Magazine, in which he appears as an 

 attorney for the children against the more staid devotees of science. 



His devotion to the welfare of his countrymen at large carried 

 him still further. He was one of those who believe that the highest 

 interests of this Republic are served by making its capital city more 

 and more dignified, noble, beautiful, and attractive. During the 

 later years of his life it was his custom to make an annual visit to 

 Europe in order to study the latest progress made, not only in sci- 

 ence, but in art, and the feelings thus strengthened he brought back 

 to his own coimtrv. One manifestation of these was seen in his zeal 



