200 The Smithsonian Institution 



ease. P As early as 1855 Professor Baird had been conscious 

 of weakness in the same organ, probably the result of the 

 sudden change from athletic outdoor pursuits to desk-work 

 which accompanied his coming to the Smithsonian. In 1873, 

 when he proposed to me to become his confidential assistant, 

 he told me that his condition was such that all exertion, and 

 even mental anxiety, was to be avoided at any cost. I do not 

 doubt that this knowledge of physical weakness and the re- 

 sultant discipline contributed to strengthen the calmness and 

 self-control to which so much of his success in later years 

 was due. 



This habit had been formed in very early life. Only twice 

 was he ever known to show anger: when, at the age of 

 twenty, some one abused his favorite Newfoundland dog ; 

 and once in the first years of his connection with the Institu- 

 tion, when a confidential letter from his aged mother was 

 opened and read by a clerk in the course of official routine. 



From early youth until failing strength forbade he kept a 

 journal of his daily pursuits, and this, together with immense 

 piles of copy-books and letter-files, will afford a treasure to 

 his biographer. When the history of his life and times shall 

 be written, it will be a history of the natural sciences in 

 America in the last two-thirds of the nineteenth century. 



He once remarked to me that he was satisfied that no 

 man's life was of such importance to the people among whom 

 he lived that he might not easily be replaced by another who 

 would fully fill his place. As I looked at the man before me, 

 a giant in body and in mind, a treasury of untransferable ex- 

 perience and wisdom, it seemed to me that if his judgment 

 was in general a true one, in him at least there was an ex- 

 ception. And so it has proved. Ten years have passed by 

 since he died, and his like has not been found. 



