The Three Secretaries 195 



every moment of his time was occupied, and he worked with 

 singular speed and efficiency ; yet he was never hurried or 

 flustered and never so much engrossed in his work but that 

 he had a pleasant word for strangers, and an open ear to all 

 the wishes or complaints of his numerous assistants and em- 

 ployees. When busiest in tabulating the results of the enor- 

 mous collections which were accumulated at the Smithsonian 

 by his means, if his daughter, then a child, came with any 

 request, he turned from his work to listen to her prattle, 

 and lent himself to her wants and wishes as though he had 

 nothing else in the world to attend to. His wife was a great 

 invalid, and there were days when, very nervous, she could 

 scarcely spare him from her sight. I have known him to sit 

 for many hours at her bedside, holding her hand in one of 

 his while with the other he went on with his writing, ready 

 at any instant to administer to her wants and wishes, and yet 

 utilizing every free moment. 



" His administrative abilities were of the very highest 

 order. As has been said, he not only managed the business 

 of the Institution in all its arrangements with remarkable 

 success, but he instituted and carried out a system of observa- 

 tions and collections in natural history that covered the entire 

 North American continent. All the departments of govern- 

 ment were ready to make their machinery tributary to his 

 wants ; the express companies and other lines of transporta- 

 tion carried all his articles free, the agents of the Hudson 

 Bay Company even to the Arctic Circle ; and both officials 

 and private persons in Mexico and the West Indies constituted 

 themselves representatives of the Smithsonian, and were con- 

 stantly sending in gratuitously collections which would have 

 cost, if paid for, thousands of dollars. Within the United 

 States Professor Baird had friends and correspondents every- 

 where, who were working along his lines in the interest of 

 science. In all this he really was Napoleonic, and the result 

 was that the old Smithsonian building was crowded with 

 priceless treasures in every department of natural science, 

 and the National Museum, his creation, was erected and 

 filled ; and now the channels he opened are bringing to 



