310 A Century of Science 



observation. The honourable position then taken 

 by the Observatory has been since maintained; 

 but as we note this, we find ourselves brought to 

 the consideration of the University and its last 

 half century of growth. And here my remarks 

 cannot help taking the form, to some extent, of 

 personal reminiscences. 



When I first came to Old Cambridge, in 1860, 

 it still had much of the village look, which it has 

 since been fast losing. Pretty much all the spaces 

 now covered by street after street of wooden &quot; Queen 

 Anne &quot; houses, in such proximity as to make one 

 instinctively look for the whereabouts of the nearest 

 fire alarm, were then open, smiling fields. The old 

 house where the Shepard Church stands was rural 

 enough for the Berkshire Hills ; and on the site of 

 Austin Hall, in the doorway of a homestead built 

 in 1710, one might pause for a cosy chat with the 

 venerable and courtly Royal Morse, whose personal 

 recollections went back into the eighteenth century. 

 The trees on the common were the merest sap 

 lings, but an elm of mighty sweep, whose loss one 

 must regret, shaded the whole of Harvard Square. 

 Horse cars came and went on week days, but on 

 Sunday he who would visit Boston must either 

 walk or take an omnibus, in which riding was a 

 penance severe enough to atone for the sin. &quot; Blue 



