80 PROCEEDINGS: BOSTON SOCIETY NATURAL HISTORY. 
credit six other papers mainly on the Lepidoptera. He was taking 
his biology seriously. 
More than we are able to appreciate, much natural history which is 
common property to-day, was new in 1870, but there was great eager- 
ness among the youth who turned that way. During the century 
after Linnaeus the systematic study of plants and animals had been 
pursued with enthusiasm and much had been done towards putting 
both in order. Here in Boston, Jeffries Wjanan, Asa Gray, and Louis 
Agassiz were giving new meanings to the study of natural history. 
Palaeontology was revealing the flora and fauna of the present as but 
the modern instance of a living world — the current chapter of a great 
continued story. 
The question raised was how these things of life had come to be and 
whither they were tending, and by way of answer, Darwn vnth his 
penetrating analysis had dispelled the clouds above this field, letting 
in the light — to the wonder of the scientific world. 
The next three years, following the appearance of his earliest effort, 
were passed by Minot at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 
from wliich he received the degree of Bachelor of Science in 1872. 
His biological work was perforce interrupted, but he could hardly have 
failed to keep alive his interests. 
]\Iinot reached the threshold of his intellectual independence at a 
moment of great activity and stir in his native land. The emotional 
stress and strain of the Civil War had subsided. Politically and 
physically the country had been welded. Visions of large growth were 
before our people. The huge central valley of the continent was 
revealing its wealth. 
These matters are by no means foreign to our theme. It is not by 
chance that the arts and sciences flourish in times of material pros- 
perity, for there is then a broadening of mental \iew, and an elation 
that makes for intellectual alertness, too; men feel that something can 
be done. At such times, too, men look l)eyond themselves and their 
immediate circle for comparisons, and the local is replaced by the 
cosmopolitan standard. 
It seems quite certain that Henry Bowditch played an important 
part in shaping the plan of life which Minot followed through the 
next four years. A little earlier (1871) Bowditch had returned from an 
inspiring experience in the European laboratories and we can imagine 
with what enthusiasm he urged his younger friend to light his torch 
I 
