1874.] SENATE— No. 200. 25 



Monthyon prize, the Cuvier prize, the Wollaston Medal from 

 the Geological Society in London, and the Medal of Merit 

 from the King of Prussia. He brought with him the blood 

 of the Huguenots, and a character moulded under the influ- 

 ences of a Protestant clergyman's home in the rural simplicity 

 and purity of the valleys of Switzerland. 



He came here as a popular lecturer. The two first insti- 

 tutions which extended their hands to him were the Lowell 

 Institute and the Salem Lyceum — the former having invited 

 him hither with the temptation of its ample endowment, 

 and the latter having enlisted his services with that spirit of 

 earnest inquiry which had opened its doors to every pro- 

 gressive thinker from the day of its foundation. This was 

 his temptation here, and this his patronage. 



We should remember, sir, that when this great man turned 

 his attention hither, he was familiar with the encouragement 

 lavished upon the great scientists of Europe. He had seen 

 Goethe provided with honor and royal companionship by the 

 Duke of Weimar, under whose genial influences he had found 

 time to develop his great scientific theory of the unity of 

 structure in the bony frame of all the vertebrates, and to lay 

 the foundation of the morphology of plants. He had seen 

 Humboldt almost overladen with the means of pursuing his 

 scientific travels and investigations by the crowned heads of 

 Europe, and at last raised to diplomatic honors by the King 

 of Prussia. He had witnessed the distinctions lavished upon 

 Cuvier, made Councillor of State, by Napoleon ; royal com- 

 missary, by Louis XVIII. ; Chancellor of the University, 

 member of the French Academy, Grand Master of the 

 University, baron, by Louis XVIII. ; President of the Coun- 

 cil of State at the coronation of Charles X. ; grand officer 

 of the Legion of Honor ; and Peer of France. But he knew 

 also that Goethe, in his genial, active, useful and distin- 

 guished of old age," wailed like a distracted woman when 

 Napoleon approached Weimar and " spitefully used " Charles 

 Augustus ; and that he afterwards accepted Napoleon's flat- 

 tery and the cross of the Legion of Honor, because the giv.it 

 conqueror had given Werther seven imperial readings. He 

 knew that he himself had corrected many of the errors of 

 Cuvier's classification, based on the invariable character of 



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