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SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. VIII. No. 192. 



founded, and this building erected because 

 Rogers knew how to make science popular; 

 his contagious enthusiasm inspired many 

 co-workers who have not yet ceased in 

 their task. With great simplicity of char- 

 acter he united an ardent imagination which 

 gave a singular fascination to his public 

 exposition of scientific truths. You perhaps 

 know him best through his earliest en- 

 deavors for the foundation of the Geological 

 Society, and you know that, later, just 50 

 years ago, he contributed with all his heart 

 to the formation of this Association. His 

 later years were devoted to the Institute 

 which he built up, and which now, largely 

 grown from small beginnings, has the honor 

 of welcoming you this day ; and it was on 

 this stage that he fell, an unfinished sen- 

 tence on his lips, giving his life to the cause 

 which overtaxed his strength. 



The memories which attach themselves 

 to this place have led me to speak thus at 

 length on this fiftieth anniversary of one 

 who was a principal founder of one Associa- 

 tion, and yet other memories crowd into 

 this hall. 



The Lowell lectures have been held here 

 for many years, and to your Association be- 

 long many of the eminent men who have 

 stood upon this platform, and who have 

 done much to make the Boston public no 

 stranger to scientific assemblies. Some 

 sixty-five years ago the strongest interest 

 in lectures was excited in New England by 

 the qualities of certain lecturers. The elo- 

 quence of Edward Everett, the character, 

 the new doctrines and the fascinating de- 

 livery of Emerson made men feel that book 

 knowledge was of little worth, and that the 

 living voice was the true means of commu- 

 nication with man. It seems like the dif- 

 ference between reading testimony or hear- 

 ing a witness. Under these impressions 

 John Lowell, Jr., a young man of 34, after 

 the misfortune of losing wife and children, 

 made a will by which he devoted half his 



fortune to founding courses of free lectures. 

 His death happened soon after in a foreign 

 land, and the fund came into the hands of 

 his cousin, John Amory Lowell, who made 

 its care and administration the chief occu- 

 pation of his life and has been succeeded in 

 the charge by his son. In these hands the 

 Lowell lectures have grown to be the larg- 

 est enterprise of the kind in the world. 

 The fund suffices to maintain 500-600 free 

 lectures yearly, and to offer inducements 

 to the most distinguished men in all Eng- 

 lish-speaking lands to come to speak to 

 Boston audiences. We owe to this enter- 

 prise the visit of many a man of science to 

 this country, and, in one notable case, a 

 permanent settlement. You all know that 

 Louis Agassiz was called to the United 

 States to deliver a course of Lowell lec- 

 tures, and that he became as good a citizen 

 as he was a savant. 



As you will see by the guide-book pre- 

 pared for the use of the Association, great 

 libraries and museums have kept pace with 

 the intellectual and material growth of the 

 community, and the needs of science are 

 represented in them as well as those of art 

 and literature. Our museums depend more 

 than other institutions upon popular appre- 

 ciation for their support, and calls upon 

 public liberality must be seconded by a 

 presentation in some striking and evident 

 way of the aims and scope of the work 

 which the collections illustrate. I cannot 

 help thinking that your presence and your 

 discussions, and the effort which you make 

 to come each year, often from great dis- 

 tances, contribute notably to keep the cause 

 of science before us, and that you aid in its 

 task each community you visit. 



As you watch the motions of the stars, or 

 make experiments in laboratories, or obser- 

 vatioDS in the fields, or build bridges, as 

 you seek to cure disease and alleviate pain, 

 or reduce the actions of mankind to fixed 

 laws, you doubtless have sometimes in view 



