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words into sentences of Bostonian ring and emphasis. A mighty spirit pervades the 

 people. Professor Louis Agassiz, a great man, was himself influenced thereby, and lately 

 even Dr. Hagen, still resisting the English language and talking of " educating " a cater- 

 pillar, after a quarter of a century in the shadow of Harvard, vaguely feels the spirit of 

 Massachusetts. Recently,' and since her last great champion for the old order of nature 

 has passed into the eternal silences, Boston has been occupied in moulding Darwinism 

 preparatory to swallowing it. Already it appears as if home-made, and is ready to- 

 deceive the very elect. The earlier notion of the origin of mankind was too much in 

 accordance with the simple vigour of Puritan thoughts to be easily abandoned. Whereas 

 the New Yorker quickly changed his mind as to his line of descent, being in any event 

 unequal to the task of tracing it for any length, Boston had to fit the new ideas to the 

 New England eternities of the "Mayflower" and Bunker Hill before they could find 

 favour in her eyes. 



But we live now in an age of anniversaries, of semi-centennials and centennials, and 

 among these we entomologists may find the opportunity of commemorating a New 

 England notion, and he who represented it, Dr. Thaddeus William Harris. It is a sign 

 of increasing thoughtfulness, that, along with the memory of distinguished persons, we 

 celebrate the rising of the ideas by which they were animated. Hero worship has not 

 declined, but there is a clearer idea prevailing as to the value of the heroes and the 

 principles they represented, and, in consequence, some changes in public opinion as to- 

 the quality of the heroship itself. And it would appear, that whereas public opinion has 

 declined in its estimation of many temporary celebrities and their causes, it is rising as- 

 regards Dr. Harris and the cause he represented. Amid the recent wholesale creation 

 of the office of State Entomologist, fifty years after the publication of the first Report 

 on Injurious Insects, we may indulge in a semi-centennial retrospect, and briefly refer to- 

 some of the pluses of the progress of the science of entomology in America during this 

 period. Yes. it is Dr. Harris who ran the first furrow, and his successors have but 

 widened the field of practical and economic entomology. Out of the eternal movement 

 of atoms and ideas, the New England notion, sent forth through Dr. Harris (1 837-1 S41) r 

 has grown in importance, and the States are generally following the example of Massa- 

 chusetts. In the Botanical and Zoological Survey of this State, authorized by a resolve 

 of April 12th, Dr. Harris was appointed June 10th, 1837, to report upon the insects. The 

 first short report upon the " Habits of some of the Insects injurious to Vegetation in 

 Masachusetts " (1838), was followed by the well known and fuller " Report on the 

 Insects of Massachusetts injurious to Vegetation " (1841). 



It is a relal ively small world in which my hero moved, and yet it finds room for differing 

 samples from the great world about it. Its members are held together by their devotion to- 

 the study, but are otherwise ill assorted and move reluctantly together. We are all men 

 before we are entomologists. Entomology lias its scholars and pedants, its men of good and 

 ill temper, its men of conscience and no conscience, of large and small views, kind and 

 unkind. It is clear as daylight of what sort was Dr. Harris. A plain and earnest man, 

 without either assumption or rawness, worthy of study in all his ways, of most 

 commendable disposition. From his picture we get the impression of a sort of good 

 homeliness, which stands as well in a man as good looks. From his writings we gather 

 the certainty that he was a pleasant, honest gentleman. As it is the soul which builds the 

 body, it 'is certain that Dr. Harris was all of this. Alas, that there are not more like 

 him. Not only should all the newer State Entomologists take him for an example, but 

 the appointing power, in the exercise of a high discretion, should take Dr. Harris as a 

 standard ; should know their man before appointing him, nor be deceived by mere 

 dabblers in the Latin names of insects. Men of talent, of the larger views which come 

 cif n ading and experience, should be sought, for such do not readily present themselves. 

 Unfortunately the appointing power yields without thought to the importunities of those 

 entirely impressed by their own abilities, self conscious, pushing, selfish persons, who some- 

 times come in this way to fill a position which a better and more modest man would have 

 adorned. Even in entomologists, those dealers in cosmical smallware, the inequalities 

 of life and character are mirrored. 



