214 HISTORICAL SKETCH OP THE 



naean Society, its history and its decline. He then gave a brief account of the movements 

 made towards the formation of a new Society, which culminated in the existence of the 

 Boston Society of Natural History. As nearly the whole address is embraced in the open- 

 ing pages of this volume, no further mention of it is necessary here. 



At the close of the President's remarks a telegram was handed to him from Prof. Wil- 

 liam B. Rogers dated Washington, D. C., expressing regret that he could not be present, 

 and rejoicing in the prosperity of the Society. His Excellency Governor Long was then 

 introduced. 1 



ADDRESS OF GOVERNOR LONG. 



When I was invited to be present at this interesting anniversary, thoroughly grateful for 

 the courtesy, I felt at first that neither personally nor as an official of the State ought I to 

 take any other part in it than that of a looker-on. But I remembered that the seeds of 

 your noble institution, Mr. President, like those of so many of the best fruits of New Eng- 

 land, were sown not altogether by the scientists nor by any one profession, but by common 

 men who lifted up their eyes above the ordinary toil of life, and who for themselves and 

 their fellow-men reached out to higher levels of knowledge and usefulness. I remembered 

 too that your first great endowment came from a merchant type of the unbroken line of 

 the peerless merchants of Boston who was little known among scientific scholars, yet 

 contributed from the accumulations of his thrift to a higher culture than his own, and that 

 this was only the beginning of a series of generous contributions from citizen after citizen, 

 which culminated at last in ample revenues from your chief benefactor, who was not less 

 distinguished for his wisdom in affairs than for his professional acquirements. And I re- 

 membered more than all, that the Commonwealth, which from the days of her founders 

 until now never yet has failed the cause of education among her children, had from the 

 first been the steadfast friend of this Society, giving it incorporation, aiding it in its early 

 years with a modest but saving annual subsidy, and, in 1861, making to it the munificent 

 donation of land on which its foundations now rest secure, a donation that came not only 

 with the good will and the God-speed of the Commonwealth, but with all the sympathy 

 and inspiration of the soul of Governor Andrew, who, next to his devotion to human rights 

 and hate of human wrongs, cherished the love of that enlarging learning which he knew 

 is from the meanness of wrong to the nobility of right the slow but sure highway. 



And so as one of the many citizens of Massachusetts, and also as one in official station 

 representing her, I am emboldened, at your request, Mr. President, to unite my voice in 

 the acclaim that hails this fiftieth anniversary of your existence. Memory and imagina- 

 tion, those exquisite poets of the human mind, memory that looks tenderly back over 

 the past, and imagination that idealizes and yet in all its mounting knows that it fails to 

 picture or command the future are making this occasion not the mere boast of fifty 

 years' success, but a tribute to what man has done, and a stimulus to what man yet a 

 thousand times more shall do in behalf of the happiness, the delight, the knowledge, the 

 ennobling of his fellow-men, unlocking from every nook and corner of the earth, and dis- 

 playing in every form and motion of life, the beneficence of God. What a stride from 

 those first small days, that parlor sofa that once held you all, those modest rooms, to 

 this splendid temple, which I trust is to be your permanent home, where shall not only 

 gather your rare and beautiful collections, but cluster with them also the memories of the 



1 The addresses at the Semi-Ceotennial meeting as pro- taken from the reports made of them ibr the Boston Daily 

 sented, with the exception of that of Dr. Waterston, were Advertiser. 



