PRESENTATION OF LOVING CUP TO PROFESSOR EMERSON 135 



the influence which helped to mold this other great teacher of our science to 

 whom we are come tonight with our hearts in our hands. Professor Emerson 

 has grasped the very horns of the altar of this science, and as we consider 

 wherein has lain his glowing success as a teacher, let us remember the atmos- 

 phere he breathed here in his student days. It was an atmosphere sweetened 

 by the fragrance of a science just bursting into flower, tinged with joyous and 

 natural emotions, but never robbed of its spirit of devotion. Teachers are the 

 personifications of immortality. The men whom Emerson trained, and who 

 have arisen one by one to their own niches in the science, sent out in their 

 turn the influence that here inflated their hopes ; and their own students, now 

 turned teachers, too, have sent the echos of the Emersonian days flying — an 

 endless course, like the pursuit of the truth. The footprints in the Connecticut 

 River sandstones were to Longfellow the theme of the Psalm of Life. To 

 Hitchcock they were more than footprints on the sands of time ; he saw in 

 the varying depth of these impressions, made heavier on one side than on 

 another, as the creature changed its course or turned a corner, the play of a 

 different muscle and the nerve message from the brain which compelled the 

 muscular motion. There he found, registered in the immortal rocks, the very 

 purpose and impulse of life. And thus, too, the great teacher. While about 

 these tables there are some who owe Professor Emerson a direct allegiance, 

 probably there are none who have not been reached by the ever-widening rings 

 of his influence or been guided by his imprints on the science. We are here 

 tonight to heap upon him our pledges and congratulations, to establish thus a 

 mile-post to mark here the passage of the years. Every rock in the fields of 

 Old Hampshire County claps its hands and the mountains of the Common- 

 wealth break forth into singing, for they are his by a peculiar right and by 

 an emphasis of interest. To him who has sounded their depths and touched 

 their heights, whose eyes have looked in upon the record written in their 

 hearts, whose inspired hammer has loosened their tongues that their tales 

 may be a part of human knowledge and their secrets turned to the advantage 

 of the State — it is to him we make our pledge of admiration and regard. 

 When Edward Hitchcock retired from the presidency of Amherst College, the 

 trustees, not knowing, perhaps, how else to express their substantial regard, 

 presented him with silver plate. So, too, we, in best of heart and with keener 

 sense of our act, ask you to believe this gift, which comes from all of us, is 

 but the miniature symbol of the measure of our regard. 



GREETINGS FROM SECTION E, AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCE- 

 MENT OF SCIENCE 



The Secretary read the following telegram : 



Toronto, Ont., December 28, 1921. 

 Dr. E. O. Hovey, 



Geological Society of America, Amherst, Mass.: 



Section E sends greetings to G. S. A. Homage to Prof. B. K. Emerson and 

 felicitations to that much loved son of Amherst, Professor Kemp. 



Willet G. Miller, Vice-President. 

 Elwood S. Moore, Sec retain. 



