INTRODUCTORY REMARKS 

 BY THE HON. WM. H. TAFT 



Charles Doolittle Walcott was Secretary of the Smithsonian Insti- 

 tution, and served for twenty years. Like his predecessors, Henry, 

 Baird, and Langley, his activities in behalf of the Institution were 

 so comprehensive and constant that he typified, and with many, 

 he was, the Institution itself. Doctor Walcott was one of the few 

 leaders in the field of science who had no collegiate or scientific 

 education. As early as his thirteenth year he had manifested his 

 interest in fossil collecting and local geology. His circumstances 

 required him to act as a clerk in a hardware store in early life, but 

 at twenty-three he sought to study at Harvard under Louis Agassiz, 

 whose death defeated his purpose. His interest in geology led him 

 to become an assistant to the New York State Geologist, James Hall, 

 at twenty-six years of age, and three years thereafter he joined the 

 staff of the United States Geological Survey. 



His original researches in paleontology in Eastern and Western 

 United States and in Wales gave him a reputation, and thereafter he 

 pursued his investigation into the fossil life of the earliest geological 

 eras, and led in that field, so that much of the general knowledge in 

 that field came from him. To win such a position in science without 

 preparation in a scientific institution was remarkable, and the branch 

 of science that he embraced he carried on to the end of liis life, in 

 spite of the heav)' duties he discharged not only in the Smithsonian 

 but in the government and in the care of the National Museum. He 

 was a marked administrator. 



In 1894, at its head, he reorganized the United States Geological 

 Survey, and greatly expanded its usefulness in the thirteen years of 

 his control, during which the Reclamation Service, the Forestry 

 Service and the Bureau of Mines were all founded and bore the 

 effect of his shaping hand. 



During his administration of the Smithsonian, the Freer Gallery 

 and the National Gallery of Art became part of the greater Institution. 



He was a leader, full of suggestion. He was sought for by scientific 

 institutions as trustee or director. He was a leading spirit among 

 the trustees of the Carnegie Institution, and he established the 

 National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, and was its leader 



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