Goodale.] 
192 
[Feb. 15, 
leading events in the life which has so lately closed. To another 
of Professor Gray’s colleagues was assigned the preparation of the 
resolutions. These duties are of such a character that neither Pro- 
fessor Farlow nor I can enter upon their performance except with 
a diffidence which is no wise feigned. 
In framing phrases to express our sense of loss we are restrained 
by the vivid remembrance of the exceeding modesty of him whom 
we commemorate. But if even this early and brief examination 
of a few salient points in his career may serve to stimulate us to 
renewed endeavor to carry out his cherished plans, we may hope 
to escape the charge of being rash or premature. 
Asa Gray’s life-work was the elucidation of the North American 
Flora; his fondest hopes centred in its completion. Knowing 
that his days would not suffice to bring order out of all the vast 
amount of material accumulated, he desired above everything else 
that his herbarium, the treasury of his collections, should be placed 
upon a safe financial basis. In this way only could be retained 
the services of its distinguished curator, Dr. Sereno Watson, who 
has been for more than twenty years Dr. Gray’s coadjutor in 
herbarium labors, and who with other systematists, may continue to 
its end its great work which may indeed be termed monumental. 
To aid in this task of placing the Gray Herbarium beyond the reach 
of present or of future want is to carry out the will of him whose 
loss we have met this evening to deplore. 
With the leading facts in the life of the great botanist you have 
been made familiar through the public press. Therefore it is not 
necessary that these should be much dwelt upon at this time, but 
rather that we should see in some manner, although imperfectly, the 
unity of purpose which guided his whole life. 
Even the briefest account of Asa Gray’s life and work must rec- 
ognize three periods. The first ends when his acquaintance with 
Dr. Torrey began ; the second closes with his removal to Cam- 
bridge ; the third, by far the longest, was his life in the university. 
Of the first two we have an interesting but too brief account in 
an unfinished autobiographical sketch which speaks of his paren- 
tage, his home life, his fondness for reading, his school triumphs, 
his early training in science and the many changes in his plans. 
The few excerpts which I have been permitted to take, can give 
but an imperfect impression of the truthfulness, the playfulness, 
and the modesty which characterize the sketch. Asa Gray was born 
in a settlement called Saquoit, in the town of Paris, New York, Nov. 
