58 
PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 
Museum, with a staff of expert curators, on a scale commensurate 
with its importance, and the abundance of its previously stored ma¬ 
terial. 
Professor Baird had now become the manager of three great 
establishments—the Fisheries Commission, the Smithsonian Insti¬ 
tution, and the National Museum; either one of which was a charge 
sufficient to fully task the energies of a vigorous man. No wonder, 
with the strain of unremitted though divided attention to these 
exacting duties, that while unconscious himself of any unaccustomed 
or undue exertions, he should find even his robust and stalwart 
strength was slowly failing under his accumulated labors. 
Informed by his medical adviser that an entire and continued 
rest from all intellectual exertion was necessary to restore his nervous 
energies to their wonted tone, he reluctantly accepted the decision. 
A year ago he asked from the Smithsonian Regents authority to ap¬ 
point two official assistants to relieve him from the greater portion 
of his responsibility, and in hearty compliance with his expressed 
desire, the eminent astronomer and physicist. Professor Langley, was 
appointed assistant in charge of the Smithsonian operations, and 
his well-tried friend and collaborator. Professor Goode, was ap¬ 
pointed assistant in charge of the Museum affairs. 
But the relaxation came too late. After a vigorous resistance of 
his strong constitution to the encroachments of internal organic 
derangements, he finally succumbed to the Destroyer, and quietly 
breathed his last on the 19th of August, 1887;—another example 
( far more frequent in the higher than in the lower fields of occupa¬ 
tion) of sacrifice to over-work. 
From even this hurried and imperfect sketch of Professor Baird’s 
diversified administrative work it is at once apparent that he pos¬ 
sessed, in a pre-eminent’degree, two great capacities,—the faculty for 
successful organization, and the faculty for continuous labor. As 
a biologist he had made a study of the entire range of organic 
nature—vegetable and animal; and with the accuracy of the special¬ 
ist, he combined the larger and fuller perception of the general zoolo¬ 
gist as to the functional and genetic inter-relations of animated being. 
The tenor of his mind was rather synthetic than analytic. While 
he ever displayed a marvellous memory for particulars and a com¬ 
prehensive grasp of details, these were apprehended more as the 
constituents of a general end or purpose, than as the residuals of a 
disjunctive conception. Clear-sighted and determined, he prevised 
