■1S70.] ^oT [Goodwin. 



well-known style of "Merrick and Son," and '• Merrick and Sons," al- 

 though Mr. Merrick's active connection with it ceased from the year 18G0. 

 The development of this great business establishment was the main work 

 of his life, and he persevered in it for a period of near a quarter of a 

 century. He retired from it with large wealth honoi-ably acquired in a 

 business whose great private gains were conditioned upon conferring im- 

 mensely greater public benefits; in works and enterprises which sensibly 

 contributed to the growth and prosperity of the city and to the welfare 

 of the state. He retired when the establishment which he had reared 

 was still in the flood tide of success, for it was never more active or useful 

 than during the years of the late rebellion. 



At an early period in his career, Mr. Merrick became deeply impressed 

 with the importance to mechanics, for theh- success and elevation, of more 

 thought and intelligence, of more acquaintance with the progress of 

 mechanical arts and inventions, and of more of mutvial intercourse and 

 social stimulus. With this view he projected and urged forward the 

 establishment of the Franklin Institute ; and it may be said, I think, 

 without disparagement to the claims of any other of its original members, 

 that no man has a better title to be considered its founder than Mr. 

 Merrick. For a long series of years he continued one of its most active 

 and honored members ; until, from its small and unpretentious beginnings, 

 as little more than an association of mechanics for mutual improvement, 

 it was developed into the chief centre of practical science in the city, be- 

 came an honor to Philadelphia, and enjoyed a familiar national and 

 European reputation. 



In one point of view the Franklin Institute has taken as its specialty 

 and almost absorbed into itself one portion of the work which pertains to 

 the general scope of this Society. Among our own founders was Ben- 

 jamin Franklin himself, a most thorough utilitarian, who always regarded 

 science with an eye to its practical applications, and considered them 

 among the principal motives for all scientific effort and enquiry. And, in 

 genei-al, so far as the foundersof this Society were philosophers, they were 

 eminently Socratic philosophers ; and such is the philosophy which they 

 designed the Society they established always to represent. The Franklin 

 Institute may, therefore, be considered as an offshoot, or a department, 

 or a section — not in form but in fact— of the American Philosophical 

 Society. And this may explain why, in later years, Mr. Merrick may 

 seem to have relinquished his active particijjation in our work — it was 

 because his interest and energies were absorbed in the Franklin Institute. 



The Managers of the Institute have expressed their own sense of 

 the merits and character of Mr. Merrick, in the resolutions which are 

 here subjoined : 



"-ResotoccZ, That the Managers of the Franklin Institute have received with the 

 deepest sorrow the announccjnent of the death of Samuel V. Merrick, the founder of 

 the Institute, for many years its president, and always its earnest, liberal and devoted 

 friend. Associated with it as he was in its early efforts for the public confidence and 

 support ; participating as he did in all the great labors and enterprises by which it 



A. P. S. — VOL. XI— 46e 



