Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 53.djvu/849

Rh the far-famed Public Library, and another at the Art Museum, gave the members opportunities of seeing two justly celebrated institutions of their kind, among the noblest in the country; another evening and several excursions were devoted to the remarkable park and water-supply systems of Greater Boston, which for scientific design and execution are in advance of those of any other American city.

In the addresses of welcome at the opening session, by the Governor of the Commonwealth, Hon. Roger Wolcott, and his Honor Mayor Quincy, of Boston, much emphasis was laid upon the public benefits, social and municipal, derived and derivable from the studies and labors of scientists, especially as illustrated in the city where they were meeting, and upon the mutual duties of the scientist and the public—the former to diffuse and extend the results of his researches for the general benefit of his fellow-men, and the latter to honor and encourage in every way the scientific laborers who had done and could do so much for society. These lines of thought will be referred to later in this article. They had a peculiar force and aptness in the city of Boston, where intellectual and scientific culture is so widely diffused, and public enterprises are so largely and so successfully carried out under scientific direction.

The meetings were held in the buildings of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the adjacent Boston Society of Natural History. Here, too, there was exceeding fitness. The Society had taken the initiative in planning and preparing the invitations to the association to meet in Boston; while the Institute was largely the life work of Prof. William B. Rogers, who was its organizer and first president for many years. Its two fine buildings are named Rogers Hall and Walker Hall, after Professor Rogers and his successor in the presidency, the late Dr. Francis A. Walker. Professor Rogers, after his early labors in Virginia as an orographic geologist, was called to the headship of this newly founded school of applied science, and remained there till his death in 1882. He always retained his ardent interest in the association that he had so largely helped to establish, was its president in 1876, and welcomed it at its last meeting in Boston, in 1880. The writer has a striking memory of him on that occasion, the aged scientist kindling with enthusiasm during a discussion in the section of geology, and saying that it brought back to him "the glow of a youthful worker among the Appalachian hills." A highly interesting and pleasing feature of the recent meeting was a reception given by his widow to the geological members, at which they had the privilege of seeing and conversing with her personally. The present president, Dr. J. M. Crafts, welcomed the association in behalf of the institution so closely