408 MEMORIAL OF JOSEPH HENRY. 



gave to the electro-magnet of soft iron, now used for the telegraph, 

 its present form, and discovered the laws by which its effective power 

 could be made active, the answer is Joseph Henry. The discovery 

 was first published in the proceedings of the Albany Institute. 

 This was the earliest contribution to the progress of discovery made 

 by the individual whom the choice of the Regents has elevated to the 

 first literary station in the United States. Soon after this discovery 

 Henry was called to the Chair of Experimental Philosophy at 

 Princeton, where for the last fifteen years or more, he has filled the 

 duties of his office in such a manner as to win for him the general 

 esteem of the literary community of that time-honored seat of 

 learning. 



"With the relations between Professor Henry and his pupils 

 we have no concern at present. It is of other relations in which 

 he has stood toward the general cultivators of physical science 

 throughout the world, that we propose to speak. One of the 

 most important discoveries of recent date, that of the identity of 

 the laws which regulate electric and magnetic, and electro-magnetic 

 induction, was among the early fruits of his researches at Princeton. 

 If Franklin discovered the identity between lightning and elec- 

 tricity, Henry has gone further, and reduced electric and magnetic 

 action to the same laws. It is impossible in a short compass to do 

 justice to the beauty and simplicity of Henry's laws of the action 

 of the imponderable agents. Whoever will read the progress of his 

 discoveries as published in the Transactions of the American Philo- 

 sophical Society, will learn something of the spirit of inductive 

 reasoning of which Henry's researches furnish one of the happiest 

 illustrations. These discoveries are not confined in their sphere of 

 utility to the limited circulation of the volumes of that Society. 

 The student of physical science may read the reprints of them and 

 the encomiums pronounced upon them in every language of civil- 

 ized man throughout the globe. It was doubtless a knowledge of 

 the extensive reputation which these and other discoveries have con- 

 ferred on so young a man, which influenced the Regents in their 

 selection of a Secretary. It is the man that gives dignity to the 

 office, and not the office to the man. In his new sphere, Professor 

 Henry will have advantages for the personal cultivation and ad- 

 vancement of science which the limited means of the Princeton 

 College too frequently circumscribed. Men of science throughout 

 the Union will find a central point for correspondence, and will pay 

 to the individual that tribute of respect which among freemen 

 would never be given to men of less attainments. We doubt not 

 that the members of the republic of letters throughout the United 

 States will applaud the choice, and give to the Regents their cordial 



