THE SEMI-CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 83 



In these things, friends, there are elements of pleasure and 

 delight, elements also of independence, which I think no other 

 profession can equal. 



I was tempted to add one other charm which your life has. 

 It is the charm of poverty. (Laughter.) 



I have sometimes felt inclined to wish, Mr. Vice-President, 

 that Congress was a little more liberal to the scientific men who 

 are working for Uncle Sam. (Applause.) But perhaps they 

 are to be congratulated on being free from those temptations 

 which beset wealth. Poverty, like other things, is good if you 

 have not too much of it (laughter), because it saves one from the 

 temptation of forgetting the end for the means, the temptation to 

 which most of us, and, above all, those who are in search of 

 wealth, succumb. You keep the end always before you, and you 

 proportion your life to that end. 



Still, I think you might, with advantage, not only to you, but, 

 what is far more important, to the whole country — and it ought 

 to be possible in a wealthy country like this — provide upon a 

 more ample scale for those who follow science, and give science 

 a more exalted position, by freeing the scientific man from any 

 thought of domestic anxiety. 



You enjoy in this country — I speak here of particular branches 

 of science — some things which we, in England, greatly envy. 

 Think of what the geologist or the botanist has before him here! 

 We have been working for one hundred and fifty years upon the 

 geology, and for more than that upon the botany, of our little 

 island; but here you have the whole continent open to you, and 

 any man of science on these subjects can make a reputation for 

 himself by new work in new fields, such as is impossible for us 

 in outgrown Europe. 



Gentlemen, one word I venture to say about the scientific 

 bodies of the continent of Europe. We have, in the Royal 

 Society, the oldest of those bodies, and one which, I think, has 

 always maintained the level which it took in the great days when 

 Isaac Newton was one of its members; and now there has sprung 

 up all over Europe a host of other bodies pursuing science and 









8 8 . 



* A 



