14 CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF THE ACADEMY. 



I am, ex officio, the solitary link connecting the Academy of to-day with the worthies who have 

 presided over it in the nearer past, and in the old time before them. It brings to mind the fact that 

 when I began to take part in the Academy's business and publications (I had the honor of an 

 election into it before I came to Cambridge and to Massachusetts, thirty-eight years ago) I used to 

 look forward to this anniversary as an epoch of uncommon interest, and to hope, rather than to 

 expect, that I might be here to see it. It seemed a long way off, and even the retrospect now, over 

 the full third of a century, is a good deal to contemplate, covering, as it does, a large portion of one's 



lifetime. 



Still, I would have my associates here to remember, and our guests to understand, that I bear 



the title of venerable only by brevet, and by the accident of position. There are surviving fellows, 



still flourishing in full vigor, still among our most active members, — such as our Vice-president 



and our renowned mathematician, and our poet, — who had made their mark in this Academy and 

 in the world before I became their associate. 



They, and a few others of our present number, who had the advantage, denied to me, of being 

 born, or at least educated, within sight of the State-house dome, — they can retrace the line of recol- 

 lection farther, and speak from personal knowledge of our illustrious President, Bowditch, whom I 

 never saw in the flesh, but upon whose benignant features, looking down upon us from the marble 

 bust in our hall, I have often gazed with reverent admiration. "With him the modern history, the 

 truly scientific era of our Academy, began. He secured for it a status and an importance which it 

 never had before, and we hope has never lost. Even if I could personally speak of him, no words of 



mine could enhance our abiding sense of the value of his services to us, and our veneration for his 

 memory. 



The beloved physician who succeeded him held office for a single year, long enough to grace 

 the presidential roll with the name of Jackson, facile princeps of the medical profession. 



When I came into the Academy the Hon. John Pickering was its President. Under him Dr. 

 Holmes and myself served for some time as secretaries. As he died in office, in the year 1846, my 

 acquaintance with him was short. It is only the older of the fellows here present who will have 

 known this dignified, kindly, scholarly, and learned man. 



Of his successor, Dr. Bigelow, who so ably and acceptably presided over the Academy for the 



next seventeen years, — adorning this as he did all the very diverse stations and vocations to which 



he was called ; who was for sixty-seven years a fellow in this society ; who, though he did not in 



longevity quite equal our sole centenarian, Dr. Holyoke, yet came near to it ; who has so recently 



laid aside the burden of the flesh, — the reverent mention of his name upon this occasion is all that 



is needed from me. Even if our younger members have hardly seen or known him, — so long did 



he survive in retirement, — the eulogy placed only a year ago upon our printed records is still 

 fresh. 



Allow me here to bring up to your memory a contemporary name, that of a member who served 

 the Academy long and well, who was one of its wisest counsellors and most devoted sons; whose 

 scientific genius, always of a practical bent, was the parent of very important inventions ; who in his 

 earliest will, made when as a young man he first crossed the ocean, bequeathed the whole of the 



