4 CEXTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF THE ACADEMY. 



his -whole career, our great forerunner in the field of American Arts and Sciences, 

 and I might add of American liberty, also, was baptized. Brought over here in a 

 blanket from the home of his father and mother just across the street, on the very 

 day of his birth, — Simday, the 6th of January, old style, or, as we now count it, the 

 'ITth of January, 1706, — that infant child of a humble tallow-chandler received from 

 the lips of the pastor of this Old South Church, not without the blessing of God 

 invoked and vouchsafed — " non sine Diis animosus infans " — the name of Benjamin 

 Franklin. Where, where else, so appropriately could American Art and Science 

 repair for the celebration of their own birth, their own small beginnings, their own 

 infant lispings, as to the cradle and the christening font of our great Bostonian ! If, 

 indeed, my friends, Ave had a second day to spare for our celebration, it might well 

 be occupied in an excursion to the birthplace and early home of another Massachu- 

 setts Benjamin, — Benjamin Thomson, Covmt Eumfoi'd, the great benefactor of this 

 Academy and the founder of the Ro^^al Institution in London,- — such an excursion as 

 Tyndall took pains to make a few years ago under the escort of Rumford's biographer, 

 Dr. Ellis, in token of his reverence for the memory of the great American philosopher 

 of light and heat. But we must content ourselves with a single day and a single 

 birthplace. 



We may not, however, forget that while the history of American Arts and 

 Sciences may fairly begin with our Boston-born printer's apprentice, that history must 

 turn to another city and another State for the opening pages of its earliest chapter. 

 Old as we are, we cannot claim the distinction of being the oldest of American Scien- 

 tific Associations, and we are rejoiced to recognize and to welcome among our guests 

 to-day a distinguished delegation from our elder sister, the American Philosophical 

 Society of Philadelphia, which was founded by Franklin not a great many j^ears after 

 he had run away, as a lad of seventeen, from his apprenticeship and indentures here, 

 and had established himself in the City of Brotherly Love. That noble city has a 

 heritage of historic glory which may well be the admiration, if not the envy, of all 

 other American cities. Not only was it the scene of the first Continental Congress, 

 of the immortal Declaration of Independence, and of the formation of the Constitution 

 of the United States ; — but it was the birthplace, also, of the first American public 

 subscription library ; of the first volunteer fire engine company ; of the first volunteer 

 militia regiment, of which Franklin was the colonel ; of the first American agricul- 

 tural society ; of the first American Bible society ; and, I believe I may safely add, of 

 the earliest anti-slavery society in our land. But it is as the acknowledged birth- 



