CALEB COOKE MEMORIAL TABLET. 13 



was one who was happier to toil modestly and incon- 

 spicuously at the far-off solution of those endless problems 

 of the material world, so the result obtained might be 

 ever so little a modicum of truth, rather than to strug- 

 gle after the unsubstantial prizes of reputation and of 

 life, so apt to crumble in the hands that snatch them. 

 Here was a man who found content in friendships, his 

 highest pleasure in human sympathy and modest work. 

 Other men understood and professed that usefulness is 

 happiness and that there is no higher good than doing 

 for others what good we can. Here was a man who felt 

 and acted it. And if it be true indeed, that getting and 

 giving are the be all and end all of American life, then it 

 is well that this elegant memorial shall attest the fact 

 that here, amongst us, in this bustling nineteenth century 

 of ours, there lived and died a quiet worker, little known 

 and caring little to be known beyond his sphere, wise 

 enough to know that no getting more enriches than the 

 getting, out of her secret storehouses, of Nature's jewels 

 of knowledge, that no giving more truly warms the 

 heart of giver and taker, and is twice blest, than the giv- 

 ing of knowledge. 



We need not here recount^the simple phases of this 

 life too early spent. They are a familiar portion of our 

 household history. To the labyrinthian mazes of this 

 noble museum his mind was the clew. It was said, some- 

 what extravagantly, that he could put his hand, in the 

 dark, on every specimen, but of how many of those 

 specimens was it the fact that his hand had placed 

 them where they were. I say nothing of his philan- 

 thropy, of his broad catholicity of spirit, of a score 

 of estimable personal traits, each as conspicuous as his 

 unswerving love of science. Other occasions have been 

 found to speak of them, and others will speak of them 



