CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF THE ACADEMY. 9 



his " prophetic history," which he trusted would be reahzed by fact and be recorded 

 by some future American Livy or Thucydides. 



But what would he have said had it been vouchsafed to him really to penetrate 

 that veil of the future which he contemplated, and to foresee even ever so small a 

 part of that which has actually occurred, and been practically accomplished, in the 

 arts and sciences to which this Academy has been dedicated. IIow would he and his 

 fellow-founders of our institution have exulted, could they have known something of 

 the stupendous discoveries in the heavens above and in the earth beneath and in 

 the waters under the earth, which were to mark the century now ended so peculiarly 

 as their own century ! What words could have measured their amazement at the 

 wonderful instruments which are now piercing the skies, and at the marvellous 

 engines which are now tramping and thundering over land and sea, scooping out 

 canals like that of Suez, or, it may be, of Darien or Nicaragua, as they go ; or tun- 

 nelling mountains, like Mount Cenis or St. Gothard, or, it may be, Mont Blanc 

 itself, to which our own little Hoosac is but a molehill ! What would they have said, 

 could they have caught the click of an ocean, or even of a land, telegraph; or 

 listened to some words of their own bottled np for a century, and coming out fresh 

 and articulate, from the lips of a telephone or phonograph ! What delight they 

 would have enjoyed could they have witnessed the working even of any of the 

 myriad of lesser and simpler inventions and implements of practical art, which are 

 ministering to the daily and hourly convenience and comfort of common life ! And 

 what ecstasy would have mingled with their bewilderment, as they reflected that, 

 by building up their little local Academy, they might claim some humble part in fos- 

 tering and furthering the great scientific movement which had pervaded the world, 

 and might thus themselves be entitled to some humble share in the glory ! What 

 satisfaction they would have enjoyed in knowing, too, that our foreign honorary 

 membership would be so highly appreciated by the select few on whom it has been 

 conferred, and in seeing upon our roll such names as Helmholtz and Kirchhoflf, as Sir 

 WilUam Thomson and Sir Joseph Hooker, as Owen and Max Miiller, as Carlyle and , 

 Mignet, and Dean Stanley and Gladstone, and Ptuskin and Tennyson, standing side 

 by side with those of our own Peirce and Gray, and Rogers and Emerson, and 

 Longfellow and Whittier, and Holmes and Bancroft, and Hopkins and Woolsey, and 

 Dana and Porter ! 



Could the founders of this Academy even now look down from the skies, as we 

 may hope they may be permitted to look down to-day, upon our own little State of 

 Massachusetts and our own little city of Boston, with what rapture would they 



