WILLIAM BARTON ROGERS. 417 



Prof. Rogers was a member of all the prominent scientific 

 societies in the United States, and had been an officer in many 

 of them. He was chairman of the Association of American 

 Geologists and Naturalists in 1845, and again in 1847, when 

 it was expanded into the American Association for the Ad- 

 vancement of Science, at the first meeting of which he pre- 

 sided until it was fully organized. He was also elected presi- 

 dent of the American Association for its meeting in ^876, and 

 was a corresponding member of the British Association. He 

 was corresponding secretary of the American Academy of 

 Arts and Sciences from 1863 to 1869. After taking up his 

 residence in Boston he joined the Thursday Evening Scientific 

 Club, of that city, and was its president for a number of 

 years. When Joseph Henry died in 1878, Prof. Rogers was 

 elected to succeed him as President of the National Academy 

 of Science. He was active in founding the American Social 

 Science Association, and was its first president. 



Among the honours paid to him was the degree of LL. D. 

 from Harvard College in 1866. In the following year he was 

 appointed commissioner to represent the State of Massachu- 

 setts at the Paris Exposition, and spent the summer at the 

 French capital. 



But this inventory of the life work of Prof. Rogers, exten- 

 sive and interesting as it is, leaves out a powerful element of 

 the influence he has exerted as a teacher over great numbers 

 of young men who have been brought within the spell of his per- 

 sonality. Prof. Rogers was an orator of the first class, and was 

 long regarded as the most impressive and delightful speaker 

 that appeared before the American Association. It must 

 be remembered that science puts oratory to its highest test ; 

 it is a field in which reason is supreme, and where the speaker 

 is not at liberty to throw logic to the winds, and make a fiery 

 appeal to the feelings and passions of listeners. The scientific 

 orator must address intelligent men, habituated to think for 

 themselves, on the alert against tricks that carry the imagi- 

 nation, while the speaker himself is kept under the close re- 

 straints of fact. To be able to captivate and enchain an audi- 

 ence in the pure work of exposition, to fascinate in teaching, 

 is a triumph of oratorical ability. Prof. Rogers was marked 

 by the possession of this rare gift, and before his classes in 

 college, whether treating of rocks, physical forces, or rigid 



