ORATION OF PRESIDENT NOAH PORTER. 5 
enchanter. The speaker well remembers the excitement which this discovery- 
occasioned when the first experiment was tried at Yale College in the presence of 
a few spectators who casually met at the call of Professor Silliman, who was glowing 
with animation and delight. The ponderous platform was loaded with pig iron 
and other heavy weights, with a few slight additions of living freight. Among 
the last was the speaker, being the lightest of all and, therefore, convenient to 
serve on the shding scale. It is more than fifty years ago, but the scene is as 
vivid as the event of yesterday." 
Briefly noting the successive discoveries of the daring young scientist in the 
same field until they made assured the telegraph and the telephone, with their 
wonders of written language and audible speech, the orator continued : 
* 'From Albany, in the year 1 83 2 , Professor Henry was transferred to Princeton 
through the wise sagacity of our honored associate, Rev. President John Maclean, 
and the generous and cordial recommendations of some of the most honored 
1 eaders of American science. The step was a bold one, and might seem almost 
rash, to transfer to a college a man who had himself lacked the breadth of early 
culture and the discipline and variety of scientific thought which the college cur- 
riculum is supposed to give. His insight into nature's secrets might seem to be 
magical ; but for this very reason could he share this secret with his pupils ? 
Would not the very swiftness of his own processes of thought disqualify him from 
imparting them to others ? Would not the lightning rapidity with which, as a 
discoverer, he had leaped from indication to theory and combined probabilities 
into evidence hinder him from discerning that there were any steps in the pro- 
cess or any articulation in the proofs? Whatever misgivings of this sort there 
might have been — and the failures in teaching of many eminent scientists have 
proved that they were not without reason — were all set aside by his acknowledged 
skill as an instructor at Albany and his prominent success at Princton. Not 
only did he give himself to instruction with exemplary zeal and painstaking, but 
he studied the theory of teaching as he studied electro-magnetism, by reflecting 
upon its conditions and laws, and using wise experiments in concrete applications. 
He did more. He used his special studies as examples of general philosophical 
inquiry, whatever might be the subject matter, and sought by means of these to 
introduce his pupils to the theory of inductive research and the nature of scientific 
evidence, however they should be applied. This was a subject which he had 
ever at heart, the discipline of the mind to a true philosophic method as the 
best preparation and security for sound science, clear insight, strong convictions, 
and practical wisdom. 
This active and fruitful life continued for fourteen years, when, at the age of 
forty-eight, in the year 1846, he was called to Washington as the first secretary of 
the Smithsonian Institution. 
At first it might seem that a situation like this would be attractive to any 
man, but on second thought many reasons would suggest themselves why, to a 
man like Professor Henry, interested as he was in teaching, devoted to research 
and with the scientific world watching eagerly his experiments, the attractions of 
