The Three Secretaries 199 



were greater than is generally known. On one occasion, at 

 least, these would have led in any other man less sagacious 

 than himself to failure of the entire conception. He came to 

 the Smithsonian Institution at a time when its policy was not 

 defined. No one can now estimate as he did the obstacles 

 to be overcome in giving shape to the materials about him ; 

 for not only the apathy of the public, but the opposition of 

 men of influence, both in and out of Washington, had to be 

 overcome and changed to sympathy at every step. 



" Professor Baird was optimistic in his views of life, judi- 

 cial in temperament, liberal in religion, catholic in his opin- 

 ions, wise and shrewd in his conduct of affairs. He had a 

 genial vein of humor. In his literary tastes he was singularly 

 free from pedantry, and entertained a sympathy so wide that 

 he was the most approachable of men. I have often won- 

 dered at his patience. Nothing appeared to excite him. I 

 never saw him in ill-temper. To an extent probably without 

 parallel in the history of science, he combined the functions 

 of administrator and investigator. This combination did not 

 interfere apparently with the kind of work he selected. This 

 was purely descriptive and was pursued in a fragmentary 

 way, — subject to innumerable interruptions and revisions with- 

 out impairment. He once told me that he wrote his book on 

 North American birds in sittings which could not have aver- 

 aged over fifteen minutes. His industry was enormous. He 

 lost no time either by impaired health or by misdirected ef- 

 forts ; indeed, he was a personification of systematic energy. 

 Thus doubtless it came to pass that the ends for which he so 

 persistently fought were achieved, and his name will be asso- 

 ciated for all time with the first comprehensive plan for the 

 organization of science in America." 



XIII. 



About sixteen years before his death, his elder brother, to 

 whom he was devotedly attached, and who had been his as- 

 sociate in his earliest natural-history work, died of heart dis- 



