this or that direction of study or path of knowledge, only, as 

 worth the pursuing, but that the simple text or legend, 

 " Knowledge should be pursued for its own sake," should 

 stand as an axiom, resting upon the everlasting foundation of 

 Truth. This made him appreciative of the special study and 

 work of others, and his friendly interest and sympathetic 

 words, stimulated and inspired the student, to continued and 

 increased effort. 



I will not recite by title in long enumeration, the many re- 

 sponsible positions he filled the experiments, investigations 

 and discoveries he made, or enlarge upon the numerous hon- 

 ors conferred upon him by the higher institutions of his own 

 country, or repeat the tributes paid to his achievements by the 

 highest intellectual and governmental authorities of foreign 

 lands. Turning from these well-merited honors, acknowledge- 

 ments not less of eminent ability than of scientific integrity 

 and personal worth, we are led to survey the completed life, 

 in its rounded term of eighty years, as a whole, as we would 

 view from afar, some stately tree whose lines are full of strength 

 and beauty, and we are curious to learn what benificent star 

 was in the ascendant, what occult charm, what power of cir- 

 cumstance, nurtured and protected, and led him onward through 

 the days of his youth, and lighted the path for his later years. 

 In turning to his early life, to the time when he first went forth 

 on its now completed voyage, we find that he was not born a 

 favorite of fortune, as that term is usually understood, within 

 an environment of luxury and ease; but, if we give a loftier 

 and better definition to the phrase, we may well regard it as 

 highly fortunate for him and for the world that he was born 

 with a profound and abiding thirst, an irrepressible longing for 

 knowledge, which determined his destiny and moulded his 

 career which led him upward and onward, though by no 

 royal road devoid of labor. 



Had his mind been colored at all by avarice, or the desire 

 for wealth, or, if in his earlier years it had received the impress 

 of commercial bias through experience in trade, he might, 

 through his numerous and important discoveries, extended into 

 inventions, especially in electricity in its practical applica- 

 tion, have accumulated wealth as did others of less knowl- 

 edge, who reaped in this productive field. His fortune so far 

 as regards material wealth, was like that of others,of nearly all 



