I' I Hi A If V 



OF 



CALIFORNIA, 



REMARKS OF ROBERT E. C. STEARNS 



ON THE LATE 



PROFESSOR JOSEPH HENRY, 



BEFORE THE 



<BtaUf0ma |Ua4ftmj of 



MAY QOtli, 1878; 



AND 



RESOLUTIONS OF THE ACADEMY, 

 June 17th, 1878. 



MEMBERS OF THE ACADEMY: Death, which hath all seasons 

 for its own, has just stricken from the roll of the living, one of 

 the illustrious names of the century, a name eminent in intel- 

 lectual, especially scientific circles, throughout the world. I 

 refer, of course, to the late Prof. Joseph Henry, whose long- 

 life service to his country and to mankind as an educator and 

 scientific investigator, and as the organizer and head of the 

 Smithsonian Institution, placed him naturally, and justly, at 

 the front, as the representative of science and scientific thought 

 and culture in America a position which he filled because of 

 his high attainments, and the conspicuous nobility of his char- 

 acter, with exceeding credit to himself and to the manifest ad- 

 vantage of science and his country. A man of great, yet un- 

 assuming excellence, whosoever met him was at once impressed 

 most favorably, by his quiet yet cordial greeting, his dignified, 

 yet genial welcome. His native breadth of mind, his wide read- 

 ing, correlated with and refined by an ample a'nd generous 

 philosophy, impelled him, even early in life, to regard not 



