COMMEMORATIVE ADDRESS 11 



quite inadequate if not made from that point of view. Born at Hones- 

 dale, Pennsylvania, on November 27, 1848, he had the misfortune, at 

 the age of 11 years, to lose his father by death. This loss was made 

 good, as far as it is possible to do so, by the loving care of mother and 

 sisters during the years of his boyhood and youthful manhood. From 

 his father he inherited his love for scientific study, which from the very' 

 first seems to have dominated all of his aspirations, directing and con- 

 trolling most of his thoughts. His father, grandfather, and great- 

 grandfather were all clergymen and graduates of Yale College. His 

 father, who is described as one " interested in chemistry and natural 

 philosophy, a lover of nature and a successful trout-fisherman," had 

 felt, in his early youth, some of the desires and ambitions that after- 

 ward determined the career of his distinguished son, but yielding, no 

 doubt, to the influence of family tradition and desire, he followed the 

 lead of his ancestors. It is not unlikely, and it would not have been 

 unreasonable, that similar hopes were entertained in regard to the 

 future of young Henry, and his preparatory school work was arranged 

 with this in view. Before being sent away from home, however, he had 

 quite given himself up to chemical experiments, glass-blowing and other 

 similar occupations, and the members of his family were often sum- 

 moned by the enthusiastic boy to listen to lectures which were fully 

 illustrated by experiments, not always free from prospective danger. 

 His spare change was invested in copper wire and the like, and his first 

 five-dollar bill brought him, to his infinite delight, a small galvanic 

 battery. The sheets of the New York Observer, a treasured family 

 newspaper, he converted into a huge hot-air balloon, which, to the 

 astonishment of his family and friends, made a brilliant ascent and 

 flight, coming to rest, at last, and in flames, on the roof of a neighbor- 

 ing house, and resulting in the calling out of the entire fire department 

 of the town. When urged by his boy friends to hide himself from 

 the rather threatening consequences of his first experiment in aero- 

 nautics, he courageously marched himself to the place where his balloon 

 had fallen, saying, " No ! I will go and see what damage I have done/' 

 When a little more than sixteen years old, in the spring of 1865, he 

 was sent to Phillips Academy at Andover, to be fitted for entering the 

 academic course at Yale. His time there was given entirely to the 

 study of Latin and Greek, and he was in every way out of harmony 

 with his environment. He seems to have quickly and thoroughly ap- 

 preciated this fact, and his very first letter from Andover is a cry for 

 relief. "Oh, take me home!" is the boyish scrawl covering the last 



