FIRST GENERAL MEETING. 49 



Professor HUBRECHT spoke as follows : 



I have great pleasure in following the delegates from other 

 countries whom we have just listened to, in order to express the 

 gratification we experience at finding ourselves in Cambridge. 

 How well I remember that last general meeting of the Leyden 

 Congress, at which Sir William Flower, whom we all regret not to 

 see here on account of ill-health, and Prof. Sydney Hickson invited 

 the Congress with kind insistance to come to England for its next 

 meeting, and how this suggestion was accepted with alacrity by 

 all members present. 



Leyden and Cambridge have also in former centuries inter- 

 changed both men and ideas, and our celebrated countryman 

 Erasmus undoubtedly had a delightful time of it when he was 

 studying in Queens' College and enjoying the beauty and the still- 

 ness of this ancient seat of learning more than three hundred years 

 ago. And in the eighteenth century you sent over to us a not 

 less celebrated Englishman of the name of Oliver Goldsmith, 

 who studied in Leyden for a while and thence commenced a 

 tour through Europe, during which his flute stood him in good 

 stead. I am afraid that in the present day Goldsmith's discreet 

 and harmonious instrument has considerably gone out of fashion, 

 and that we have become more accustomed to the sounds of the big 

 trumpet. 



True science, however, is most averse to the use of that 

 instrument, and a Congress like this should frankly recognise that 

 its general and sectional meetings do not pretend to do more than 

 bring together, for a friendly intercourse of several consecutive 

 days, fellow workers from the most different parts of the world, 

 who will be all the better prepared for the scientific labour that 

 awaits them at home, when they have here felt the bracing effects 

 of international solidarity and of British hospitality. 



Prof Marsh said : 



Mr President, I thank you sincerely for calling upon me to 

 speak for the United States, and I am sure all of my associates 

 appreciate very highly the privilege of being here, and the cordial 

 welcome you have extended to the Delegates from other countries. 



One of my colleagues at Yale University who knows England 

 well has written a book about this country under the title " Our 

 Old Home," and every American who comes here appreciates the 

 sentiment, feels a natural pride in visiting the home of his ancestors, 

 and claims a share in the history and literature of this country, as 

 part of our common heritage. 



When this Congress met three years ago at Leyden, my friend, 

 Professor Hubrecht, who has just addressed you, showed me an old 

 church in that city where the Pilgrim Fathers worshipped, and their 

 leader, John Robinson, preached to them after they had left 

 England, and before they emigrated to America. Then, I confess, 



