Febeuaey 11, 1921] 



SCIENCE 



125 



far distant horizon and note the outstanding 

 features of his long journey. A brief men- 

 tion of a few of the more striking events 

 which have occurred during my long life may, 

 therefore, prove of some interest. 



My ancestor, Joran Kyn (George Keen), 

 following the Mayflower pilgrims only 23 

 years later, left Sweden in the retinue of 

 John Printz, the first Governor of 'New 

 Sweden, and reached the Delaware River in 

 1643. He founded the nearby city of Chester. 

 We, his descendants, I think may fairly claim 

 to be truly Americans. 



During my lifetime, the United States has 

 (observe not have but has) grown from a 

 small and isolated nation of only sixteen 

 millions in 1837 to a nation rapidly approach- 

 ing one hundred and sixteen millions. We 

 have also spread from the Alleghanies to the 

 Pacific. Instead of being isolated, we are 

 boimd to all the world by a splendid devotion 

 to Liberty and Law. What a free Democracy 

 can do, even across 3,000 miles of boisterous 

 water, to aid in crushing a tyranny which 

 threatened to engulf the whole world, is the 

 most splendid episode in our entire national 

 history. 



Yet how short our life as a nation is may 

 be better appreciated when compared with the 

 life of a single citizen. From the date of my 

 birth, January 19, 1837, back to July 4, 1776, 

 is only 61 years and a half. From that same 

 date to yesterday is 84 years 1 



One man links me to the first l^apoleon, 

 for, in 1862, I assisted the elder Gross in an 

 operation on a Frenchman for a woimd re- 

 ceived in the Russian campaign of 1812. 

 One woman, my maternal grandmother Budd, 

 links me even with Washington himself. She 

 often related to me how he used to caress her 

 as a young girl, when seeking food and forage 

 from, my great-grandfather's farm just across 

 the ridge from Valley Forge in that fearful 

 winter of 1777. 



The first six-weeks of my life were spent 

 during the reign of that sturdy old patriot, 

 Andrew Jackson. He and I had at least one 

 thing in common — we were profoundly igno- 

 rant of each other's existence. In another 



matter, our attitudes were miles apart. He 

 was obsessed as to the removal of the deposits 

 of the United States Treasury from that 

 stately building at 4th and Chestnut Streets, 

 while I well recall how utterly indifferent I 

 felt about that exciting subject. But I made 

 the air vibrant if my daily ration was too long 

 delayed. 



Long since, I gave up the rather oppro- 

 brious phrase " Old Age " and have substi- 

 tuted for it the more seductive locution " ac- 

 cimiuiated years." The latter connotes a cer- 

 tain joy in continued acquisition, a sort of 

 pride in adding one annual sparkling jewel 

 after another to an already precious store. 



I was asked recently how it was that I had 

 managed to accumulate so many years, to 

 which I promptly replied, " Nothing is simpler 

 — don't stop. Just keep right along." Mix 

 merry laughter with earnest labor. Always 

 have some as yet unfinished, but not too urgent 

 job waiting just outside your door. Then you 

 will never know ennui. To "kill time" is 

 murder in the first degree. 



William Dean Howells, one of the privi- 

 leged few who spell their names in the plural 

 because they are such multiplied personalities, 

 in his delightful essay on "Eighty Tears and 

 After," first pays his respects to several nona- 

 genarians. He then turns upon those of us 

 who have accumulated ten fewer years (he 

 actually being also one of us) and says, "As 

 to the Octogenarians, there is no end of them; 

 they swarm, they get in one's way." 



I humbly crave pardon of any of you if I 

 occupy a place in the sun to which you have 

 a better right than I. Ultimately, no doubt, 

 I shall get out of your way, but do not over- 

 look the fact of my maliciously good health, 

 and that a collateral forbear reached the 

 mature age of 106. The prospect, therefore, 

 of speedy relief, I regret to say, seems rather 

 discouraging. I commend to you the phi- 

 losophy of life of the woman who, when asked 

 by her minister what passage of Scripture 

 gave her the greatest comfort, promptly re- 

 plied, "'Grin and bear it' helps me most." 



The development of industry, of commerce 

 and of the material things which minister to 



