74 
PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 
Baird’s great works on natural history developed in America a 
great corps of naturalists, many of whom have become illustiious, 
and the stimulus of his work was felt throughout Europe. In the 
research which he organized the materials were furnished for this 
corps of naturalists ; but his agency in the development of this body 
of workers w^as even more direct. He incited the men personally 
to undertake and continuously prosecute their investigations. He 
enlisted the men himself, he trained them himself, he himself fur¬ 
nished them with the materials and instruments of research, and, 
best of all, was their guide and great exemplar. Thus it was that 
the three institutions over which he presided—the Smithsonian In¬ 
stitution, the National Museum, and the Fish Commission—were 
woven into one great organization—an university of instruction in 
the methods of scientific research, including in its scope the entire 
field of biology and anthropology. Such is Baird the investigator, 
Baird the organizer, and Baird the instructor in the length, breadth, 
and thickness of his genius, the solidarity of a great man. 
All that I have said is a part of the public record; it is found in 
the great libraries of the world; but, however exalted the feeling 
of admiration we may entertain for Baird as a scholar and admin¬ 
istrator, it is to his attributes as a man, as disclosed in his personal 
relations with friends, associates, and contemporary men of affairs, 
that we most fondly turn. It is in these relations that he most 
clearly exhibited those kindly and modest traits of character which 
made him so universally beloved. 
• As a man of affairs. Professor Baird exhibited great sagacity. 
His plans for the organization of scientific work were of great mag¬ 
nitude, and had they been presented to the administrative officers 
of the Government or to legislative bodies with exaggeration, or 
even had they been presented with the glow of an enthusiastic 
missionary of science, they might well have encountered opposition. 
But Baird had a wonderful faculty of presenting his plans with 
extreme modesty, and with a degree of understatement, but sugges¬ 
tion of possibilities which speedily caused him to whom the appeal 
was made himself to become an advocate of the Professor’s measure. 
He had traits of character in this respect which are hard to explain, 
and which seem at first to be contradictory. In the advocacy of 
measures his modesty amounted almost to timidity, and he avoided 
alike argumentation and ostentation, and he presented his measures 
with the directness of a child. Notwithstanding all this, there was 
