1()(5 T]i irfi/-S('coii(l AiniiKil Mi'cliiifi 



eians and Surgeons in New York in 184"^/' His nunlifal eours ^ 

 was never formally completed, although in 1S4S lie received th<' 

 degree of M. D., honoru causa, froni the Philadelphia ^ledical 

 College. In 1845 he was chosen ''])rofessor of natural history" 

 in Dickinson College, wdiich 1 find included the strange comlji- 

 nation of '^teaching the seniors in physiology, the sophonior<'S 

 in geometry, and the fresmen in zoolog}'." His summers, how- 

 ever, were devoted to extended collecting expeditions — to the 

 Adirondacks in 1847, to Ohio in 1848 to collect, in company 

 with Dr. Kirtland, from the original localities of the types, the 

 fishes described by him in his work on the fishes of Ohio, to the 

 mountains of Virginia in 1841), and to Lakes Champlain and 

 Ontario in 1850. I may say that at that very time Dr. Kirtland 

 discovered on the bank of the great hikes the ])ird wliic'h has 

 since borne his name. In 1848 he declined a call to the jirofes- 

 sorship of natural science in the T'niversity of A'ermont. Tr. 

 1849 he undertook his first extensive literary work, translating\ 

 and editing the text for the '■'Iconogra])hic Encyclopedia." an 

 English version of Heck's Bilder-Afhis published in connection 

 with Brockhaus' Con rersafions-ljcxikon. 



A large field now opened before Professor Baird. On the 

 nrgent recommendation of the late George P. ]\larsli he was 

 elected an oi^icer of the Smithsonian, and on July 5, 1850, he 

 accepted the position of assistant secretary of this institution, 

 and on October 3, at tlie age of twenty-seven years, he entered 

 npon his life work, pursued with indefatigable earnestness in 

 connection with that beneficent national foundation. Its aim, 

 as well as the key to the consecrated life of Professor Baird, is 

 fonnd in the motto of the institntion and of its generous 

 founder, James Smithson, "I'lic increase and diffusion of asefiil 

 l-noirlcd(je anion</ men." One evening 1 was sitting witli Pro- 

 fessor Baird before an o])en fire in his private library atWashing- 

 ton, and said, "A friend in Chicago has had a motto placed over 

 his library mantel and I won hi like to see one over yours." 

 "What is it?" he quickly asked, and I suggested "as typical of 

 your own life work" — "The increase and diffusion of useful 

 knowledge among men." He l)rought witli him to Washington 

 methods of work dcvclojx'd in liis own personal cwperienee, 

 which lu'caine at once tlu' methods of the establishment." His 



