THE SEMI-CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY 89 



help ; but it was characteristic of the noblest form of the scientific 

 mind. 



You will, I trust, pardon me if I close this long talk with a 

 few too personal words about the much loved first director of 

 the Smithsonian Institution, first of the men who sacrificed to 

 that Institution a scientific career. When a boy about fifteen 

 years old, I was sent by my father to Professor Henry at Prince- 

 ton with some glass apparatus, which could not otherwise be 

 sent without danger of breakage. 



He met me at the station, took me to the house, and spent a 

 part of the next morning endeavoring to explain to my bewil- 

 dered youth the experiments he was making in the transmission 

 of electric signals. I was overcome by the unwonted attention 

 paid to a boy of my age, and expressed myself so warmly that 

 he laughed as he bade me good bye, saying: " Well, life some- 

 times gives one a chance to return little favors, and perhaps some 

 day you will have an opportunity to oblige me." 



Long years passed by, and sometime in the beginning of 1878 

 Professor Henry asked me to come to Washington and advise 

 him. After a thorough examination of his case, he asked me 

 plainly if he was mortally ill. I said, " Yes." Then he asked 

 how long he had to live, but I could not set a date. He said, 

 " Six months? " Hardly, I thought. He died in May of that 

 year. 



As I arose to go away, his carriage waiting, he said: " I have 

 yet to discharge my material obligation. How much am I in 

 debt to you? " I replied, " You are not in debt. There are no 

 debts for the Dean of American Science." 



He was much overcome, and said: " I have always found the 

 world full of kindness to me, and now here it is again." I could 

 only say: " You do not remember, sir, that once you said to me, 

 a boy, when you had been very kindly attentive to me and I had 

 tried to express my obligation, that perhaps a time might come 

 when I could oblige you. If this obliges you, my time has come." 

 And so we parted. 



