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SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. II. No. 37. 



through which the increase of wealth is 

 caused, which enables the laborer to become 

 a capitalist. Then the political economists 

 may meet together and discuss the im- 

 proved social order, burn their old books, 

 and erect a monument to the man who 

 above all others contributed the means for 

 obtaining the wealth of nations, James 

 Watt, the engineer. William Kent. 



JOHN ADA3I RYDER* 

 In 1875, exactly one score of years ago, 

 John A. Ryder began his work at the Acad- 

 emy. Six of these years were spent in the 

 service of the government. The remain- 

 ing fourteen were in close communion with 

 these halls. The museum and library were 

 the scenes of his many labors. 



At one time his friends feared that he 

 was covering too large a field. Doubtless, 

 the fear would have been sustained if 

 Eyder had pursued his studies along con- 

 ventional lines. But we must not judge 

 him by such a standard. His mental atti- 

 tude was well poised. The objects that 

 ' swam into his ken ' came from a wide 

 space. So long as he was searching for the 

 results of vital forces on the economy, it 

 mattered little to him whether it was the 

 teeth of mammals, the tails or scales of 

 fishes, or the movements of protoplasm in 

 a rhizopod that illustrated these actions. 



While arranging the collections of the 

 Academy as a Jessup Fund student he 

 found material for his studies in teeth of 

 quadrupeds ; while on excursions in the city 

 park, in the smaller articulated animals 

 feeding on fungi or swimming in pools ; 

 while on the Fish Commission, in the oyster 

 and its parasites and the movements of 

 fishes ; as professor of histology and em- 



*An address on ' Dr. Ryder's relations to the Acad- 

 emy of Natural Sciences;' of Philadelphia, hy Dr. 

 Harrison Allen, given at the memorial meeting on 

 April 10, 1895, and published by the committee in 

 charge of publication. 



bryology at the University, in the prepara- 

 tion of specimens for courses of instruction. 



What were the mental forces that opera- 

 ted in Ej'der to make him what he was ? 

 This is of interest, for the result of com- 

 parative studies is to aid us in knowing 

 ourselves. How strange is the phenome- 

 non ! First, a young student coming to 

 the Academy so absolutelj^ unknown that 

 his first application to a position on the 

 Jessup Fund was deferred. Second, his ob- 

 taining the position and setting to work on 

 the collection, rearranging and cleansing 

 specimens, refilling jars and cataloguing. 

 Third, after a career of four years attract- 

 ing the attention of Professor Baird and 

 leaving the city to accept an appointment 

 on the Fish Commission. Fourth, return- 

 ing to Philadelphia in 1887 and again in 

 frequenting the Academy, no longer work- 

 ing on its collections, but consultiug its 

 library and speaking at its meetings as a 

 University professor. So we find Ryder at 

 the beginning and at the end of his career 

 part of the Academy. But where, in this 

 chain of circumstances, do we find the 

 factors which gave to Ryder those things 

 which distinguish him ? Almost precisely 

 the same conditions (so far as the Academy 

 and the University were concerned) were 

 met with in Leidy. Yet how different were 

 the two men ! Indeed, so little did Leidy 

 understand Ryder that he endeavored (with 

 the most kindly motive) to dissuade him 

 him from a career of study. Leidy knew 

 that men who are dependent on science for 

 a livelihood secure fewer prizes in the strug- 

 gle for maintenace than do those in any 

 other learned calling. This statement is 

 yet true, and it had special force twenty 

 years ago. 



Thus while the Academy gave Ryder in- 

 calculable aid (the soil, indeed, in which he 

 grew), the infiuences which determined the 

 character of his work were extraneous. 

 These were in brief the influences of the 



