24 CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF THE ACADEMY. 



This old University has clustering about it memories of deeper interest than that of any other 

 institution of learning in the civilized world. From it radiated an iniluence which stamped its 

 impress upon the culture of all Europe for many centuries. It was the first to confer upon its 

 students academic degrees, and continued to be the great centre of learning throughout the 

 Middle Ages. 



It counted its students, during the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, literally by the 

 thousand. Here was first inaugurated, during the fourteenth century, dissections of the human body 

 in the study of anatomy. 



The great Italian masters of anatomy, who took up its study where Galen had left it, in the first 

 century, full of mysticism and superstition, and developed it into an exact science, were here 

 enrolled as professors. Malphigi, Murgaui, and many scarcely less distinguished, were of Bologna. 



As Professor Agassiz has told you, for centuries some of the most learned women in the world 

 have been teachers in this celebrated institution. 



From its history we may gather lessons of great interest and value. We learn how wisely and 

 carefully science was encouraged at a period still shrouded in the mists of the dark ages; how 

 church and state threw around it their fostering care ; and under such influences it gi-ew to be a 

 great power, diffusing light and knowledge through the centuries, culturing alike the priest, the 

 man of letters, and the armed knight, until even to-day, when science, diffused through all lands, 

 has raised up many rivals, and although learning has been much depressed by the political changes 

 of the last quarter of a century in Italy, this old University is yet in a flourishing condition, and 

 numbers at the present time more than six hundred students. 



In closing, I should fail to do myself justice did I not pay tribute to the Secretary of the 

 Academy of Sciences at Bologna, Professor G. B. Ercolani, a man, although yet young, who has 

 contributed to science, in histology, comparative anatomy, and embryology, work which will compare 

 favorably with that of any of the present day, and will couple his name in the future with the great 

 masters of early Italian fame. 



Letters of thanks, sympathy, and congratulation were received from many of the 

 foreign Academies and Societies which had been invited to participate in the celebra- 

 tion, as follows : 



Quebec. Literary and Historical Society. 



H.-U.IFAX. Nova-Scotian Institute of Natural Science. 



Mexico. Museo Nacional. 



" Sociedad Mexicana de Geographia y Estadistica 



Cambridge. Philosophical Society. 



" University. 



London. British Association. 



" Institution of Civil Engineers. 



" Linnean Society. 



