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tions, are able to see what is to be seen in other lands. I know, 
of course, that with the development of photography the eye may 
travel around the world. Men have often wondered, as you know, 
how this planet would seem — what it would look like — viewed 
from interstellar space. Have you ever thought that we really 
look at the world in these days of ours with the eyes of the sun 
itself? You remember that Scripture says that there is nothing 
hid from the heat thereof, and so as you come to the lectures that 
are given in these halls, and see produced day after day, week 
after week, year in and year out, the pictures which the sun has 
taken, that consummate and indefatigable artist, do we not realize 
that those of us who are fortunate to live to-day really see the 
world with the eyes of the sun itself. 
But on its popular side these collections may serve another 
purpose, I think. I wonder whether you recall Longfellow's 
poem upon Agassiz, written on his fiftieth birthday. He pictures 
to himself nature as a nurse taking its baby child upon her lap, 
and the lines go as I recall them : 
"And Nature, the dear old nurse, took the child upon her knee, 
Saying, ' Here is a story book thy father has written for thee.' 
Come wander with me, she said, in the regions yet untrod, 
And read what is easily read in the manuscripts of God. 
So he wandered away and away with Nature, the dear old nurse, 
Who sang to him night and day rhymes of the universe ; 
And whenever the way seemed long, or his heart began to fail, 
She would sing a more beautiful song or tell a more marvellous tale." 
Who can tell what the inspiring wonders of a collection like 
these are upon the multitudes who pass to and fro before the 
cases which contain the collections. Longfellow said on one 
occasion that the most profitable course of lectures he ever de- 
livered was delivered to a single student ; the subject of the 
course was the history of the Netherlands, and the student was 
John Lathrop Motley. I do not know how many Motley's may 
pass through this hall ; the world never knows its Motley's or 
its Aggasiz's or its Humboldt's, until they reveal themselves in 
future years, but seeds may be planted here every day that will 
bring forth rich fruit in the years to come. And this reflection 
leads me naturally to the other side of the Museum, that which I 
have spoken of as the scholarly side. 
