670 ANNUAL. REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1911. 



contemporary, and who, if he had not the advantage of such per- 

 spective as time affords, at least had all the benefit of distance in 

 space to aid his judgment. It is sufficient here to say that the esti- 

 mate made in 1877 has been fully sustained by all that has happened 

 since; it is, moreover, interesting to reflect that the hope then so 

 fondly expressed that Hooker, already in his sixtieth year, might' 

 still be only in mid-career has been fulfilled almost to a day. If it 

 be urged that in one respect the judgment of 1877 is at a disadvan- 

 tage as being from the pen of one who, like Darwin, was bound to 

 Hooker by the ties of almost lifelong affection, then we can only say 

 that no one now alive who has enjoyed the privilege of Hooker's 

 acquaintance may venture to judge his work, because to know Hooker 

 was to love him. The breadth of his interests, the depth of his 

 knowledge, and the wisdom of his counsel combined to inspire rever- 

 ence and regard. But above all these qualities, and beyond the sin- 

 gular charm of his manner, shone the unstudied and unstinted kind- 

 ness which compelled affection. 



A member of the Linnean Society since 1842, Hooker was a member 

 of the council during 24 years, and for 15 of these was one of its vice 

 presidents. He was also a member of the Geological Society, which 

 he joined in 1846. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 

 1847, and served on the council during 17 years, for 6 of these as 

 a vice president and for 5 as president. A correspondent of the 

 Institute and a member of the Academies of Berlin, Bologna, Boston, 

 Brussels, Copenhagen, Florence, Gottingen, Munich, Rome, St. Peters- 

 burg, Stockholm, and Vienna, he enjoyed, in addition, the freedom 

 of practically every society or corporation devoted to the promotion 

 of natural or technical knowledge within and beyond the British 

 Empire. Not a few of these bodies have bestowed on Hooker still 

 further distinctions. On the recommendation of the Royal Society 

 he received a Royal medal in 1854; by the same society he was 

 awarded the Copley medal, its highest honor, in 1887, and the Darwin 

 medal in 1892. From the Society of Arts he received their Albert 

 medal in 1883; from the Geographical Society their Founder's medal 

 in 1884; from the Linnean Society their Linnean medal in 1888, a 

 medal struck to celebrate his own eightieth birthday in 1897, and 

 one of the medals struck in 1908 to commemorate the fiftieth anni- 

 versary of the publication of the joint communication of Darwin and 

 Wallace on natural selection, in the original presentation of which 

 to the society he had played so important a part. The Manchester 

 Philosophical Society awarded him a medal in 1898, and in 1907 he 

 received, in circumstances of singular dignity, from the Swedish 

 Academy, what he himself has characterized as the crowning honor 

 of Ins long life — the solitary medal, struck especially for the occasion, 



