394 SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD 
Miss Lucy Baird in her reminiscences refers to the 
death of Professor Henry and the election of her father 
to the secretaryship as follows: 
“Tmmediately upon the death of Professor Henry, 
my father was elected Secretary, in accordance with 
Professor Henry’s expressed wish. During Professor 
Henry’s last visit to England, was asked by some person 
interested in scientific matters in this country,—who had 
heard with hearty approval the account of how the 
Smithsonian had been conducted under the management 
of its first Secretary,—whether, in the event of his death, 
there was any one capable of carrying on the work. 
Professor Henry replied, ‘Yes,’ that he hoped his successor 
would be his Assistant Secretary, Professor Baird, who 
was in every way fitted for the post. This, Professor 
Henry himself told my father. The relations between 
Professor Henry and my father were of the most friendly 
character, Professor Henry’s kindness growing with every 
year of their official association and my father’s affection 
for his chief increasing steadily until finally the feeling 
became almost fatherly and filial between the two. I 
remember very well the pain which my father felt when 
some persons expressed their congratulations, as he 
thought, with too great warmth, forgetting the sad loss 
which led to his promotion. Indeed, honored as he felt 
himself to be in being elected Secretary, and highly as 
he felt the fact that so many of his friends were rejoiced 
that he should be the one to succeed Professor Henry, 
and much as he felt that Professor Henry would have 
been—as he had himself said—gratified at the election, 
he, nevertheless, so felt the fact that the vacancy which 
he had been appointed to fill had been created by the 
death of one of the nearest and dearest friends of his life, 
