190 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. III. No. 58. 



In 1871 he was made professor of nat- 

 ural philosophy at the University of Ber- 

 lin, 



In 1873 he received from the Eoyal So- 

 ciety the highest distinction which it can 

 bestow, the Copley Medal ; and in the same 

 year the King of Prussia conferred upon 

 him the Order of Merit in Science and Art. 



In 1883 hereditary nobility was conferred 

 upon him by Emperor William I. 



In 1887 he assumed the directorship of the 

 great Physico-technical Institute, founded 

 by the German government at Charlotten- 

 berg. 



In 1891 the seventieth anniversary of his 

 birth was celebrated with great ceremony 

 and he was placed at the head of the civil 

 list by the German Emperor. 



In 1893 he visited America, serving as 

 President of the International Electrical 

 Congress held in Chicago. 



In 1894, on September 8th, he died at the 

 age of seventy-three years. 



Such is the brief outline of the life of one 

 of the most extraordinary men of the pres- 

 ent century. To perfect such a sketch in 

 anything like just proportions, or to attempt 

 in the few minutes allotted to me to-night 

 to set forth anything like a fair estimate of 

 the labors of one of whom it may be justly 

 said that he was the most accomplished 

 scholar of modern times, is a task no one 

 would seek. Nor can one easily decline 

 the honor which is carried by an invitation 

 from a commission representing the scienti- 

 fic societies of Washington to take part in 

 so memorable a commemoration as this. 

 Under the circumstances, I must confine 

 myself to an exposition, all too brief, of a 

 few only of the principal contributions to 

 human knowledge among the great number 

 for which the world is indebted to Prof. 

 Helmholtz. It was his distinctive charac- 

 teristic that among the exponents of modern 

 science he stood quite alone in being really 

 great along several lines. He was in the be- 



ginning and always a pure mathematician 

 of high type . Anatomists and physiologists 

 claimed him for their own. During a few 

 days' stay in New York in 1893, after hav- 

 ing presided over the International Con- 

 gress of Electricians, he was entertained by 

 a distinguished surgeon, the leading eye 

 specialist of the country, and ophthalmol- 

 ogists flocked to do him honor as one of 

 the founders of their profession. When, in 

 1881, he gave the Faraday lecture before 

 the Chemical Society of London, the Pre- 

 sident of Society in presenting to him the 

 Faraday Metal, declared that eminent as 

 was Helmholtz as an anatomist, a physiolo- 

 gist, a physicist and a mathematician, he 

 was distinctly claimed by the chemists. 

 Nor were these only idle compliments. 

 Only a few days ago I happened on a most 

 curious and interesting illustration of the 

 unequalled extent of his scientific constitu- 

 ency in finding, in a widely known journal 

 published in London, his obituary notice 

 indexed under the heading, ' The Stage and 

 Music,' where his name appeared accom- 

 panied by only that of Anton Rubenstein. 

 His great work on the ' Sensations of Tone ' 

 and his analysis of the vowel sounds of the 

 human voice gave him a lasting fame 

 among musicians. 



Psychology as well as Esthetics was bene- 

 fitted by his touch, but I think it will be 

 generally admitted that he was first of all, 

 and more than all else, a physicist. Indeed 

 it may be said that the best fruits of his 

 study of other branches of science grew out 

 of the skill with which he engrafted upon 

 them the methods of investigation for which 

 we are primarily indebted to the physicist. 



When a boy he had acquired a fondness 

 for the study of Nature. His father was a 

 professor of literature in the gymnasium at 

 Potsdam; his mother a woman of English 

 descent. Although he was encouraged in 

 the development of his youthful tastes as 

 much as possible, the necessity for earning 



