638 Life of Count Riimford. 



is sensible of the magnitude of the example before him ; that he 

 believes that the true end of philosophy is to be useful to man- 

 kind ; and that he will cheerfully and anxiously enter upon the 

 duties that await him ; happy if by his efforts he can hope to 

 add even a nameless stone to the monument of philanthropy 

 and science that commemorates the name of him of whom it 

 may in truth be said that he lived for the world, and that he 

 died for his country." 



Dr. Bigelow discharged the duties of Rumford Pro- 

 fessor of the Physical and Mathematical Sciences as 

 applied to the Useful Arts until 1827, when he re- 

 signed the office. Having repeated for ten successive 

 years his course of lectures, which he made exceed- 

 ingly interesting to the students by illustrative models, 

 apparatus, and other helps, he published them in a 

 substantial volume, entitled the " Elements of Tech- 

 nology " (Boston, 1829), thus introducing, if I am 

 not mistaken, the use of a word among us which now 

 serves to express an entire system of education, by new 

 methods, to new uses.* 



* Almost fifty years after the delivery of his Inaugural at Cambridge, Dr. Bigelow 

 had the extraordinarily happy privilege of pronouncing the opening address at the 

 inauguration of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Boston, November 16, 

 1865. This address, as a plea for " the new education," excited profound interest and 

 raised an animated discussion between scholars and philosophers in this community. 

 Coming, as it did, from a devoted pupil and lover of the ancient classics, and from a 

 scholar who, in the lore of the past, has few peers, it was unfairly represented in some 

 quarters as a depreciation of thorough learning in the old humanities. But the 

 author nobly and in admirable temper vindicated his position. 



Still happily welcomed in street, in social meeting, and in the literary assemblies, 

 the venerable author, the honored Nestor of his profession, having for seventeen years 

 before he resigned the office presided over the American Ajademy of Arts and Sci- 

 ences, Dr. Bigelow has gathered many of his previously published productions into a 

 volume entitled "Modern Inquiries: Classical, Professional, and Miscellaneous." 

 (Boston, 1867.) The volume contains the two addresses to which reference has been 

 made. Not feeling the burden of his more than fourscore years, Dr. Bigelow was one 

 of the most active and zealous of the party who, on the first year of the opening of 

 the great roadway to the Pacific, took their route across the continent to California. 



