6 McGEE MEMORIAL MEETING 



that the Committee has decided to have it read without any emenda- 

 tion whatever. The letter is from Miss Emma R. McGee, of Iowa, 

 a sister of Doctor McGee. 1 



Doctor McGee's constructive intellectual activity was exercised in 

 varied fields of science. From a farm boy Doctor McGee became a 

 blacksmith; from a good blacksmith he became a good geologist. His 

 work on the Atlantic Coastal Plain is one of the monumental works in 

 geology; from that he went into anthropology and ethnology. Then 

 he made an almost new science, for he went into the subject of Con- 

 servation, and brought all the energies and knowledge of a lifetime 

 into that work. 



I am reminded at this time of a statement made by a Russian bota- 

 nist nearly a century ago when he had finished a very remarkable 

 and very good piece of critical work: 



Errare quidem humanum est, sed discrimen statuimus inter errores qui 

 excusari possunt, et qui non possunt. Solatio mihi est spes, vos, benevo- 

 los lectores, errores meos in iis numeraturos esse, qui excusari possint. 



It is the business of the scientist to pursue the truth. We should 

 so live that when we have finished our course, we can say, as Doctor 

 McGee would have said: "To make mistakes is human, it is true, 

 but there is a difference between errors which are excusable and those 

 which are not excusable. It comforts me, my colleagues, to have the 

 hope that you will place my mistakes among those you gladly forgive." 



In my own department of research, the vegetable world, Doctor 

 McGee's work was of limited extent. Yet I always found his advice 

 helpful, constructive, and suggestive. Even in this unfamiliar field, 

 he was an intellectual editor whose criticism, which was often sought 

 and always freely given, was of the highest value. 



It was in geology, geography, and anthropology that he did his 

 chief work. He made lasting contributions to these sciences. In 

 his later years he devoted his efforts to the creation of a sound public 

 conception of our natural resources, and to their development and 

 use to the point of greatest efficiency. Doctor McGee's relation to 

 these subjects is more fully known to his immediate associates in the 



1 See page 90. 



