Jump to content

Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 70.djvu/315

From Wikisource
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA
311

of piscicultural science under his guidance gave to the United States the foremost place among the nations in maintaining and increasing the aquatic food supply by artificial means; and it was no perfunctory tribute when, in 1880, at the International Fishery Exhibition held in Berlin, Emperor William awarded the grand prize to Baird as 'the first fish-culturist in the world.'

The spirit of Baird influences the Bureau of Fisheries to-day, as it does all other institutions with which he was associated; and since his death, nearly twenty years ago, the good that has been accomplished in the interest of fish-culture and the fishing industry, and in the conduct and encouragement of scientific work, has been in consequence of the foundations he laid, the policy he enunciated and the example he set.

But conspicuous as were his services to science and mankind; faithful and unselfish as was his devotion to the executive responsibilities imposed on him; beautiful as was his personal character, I conceive that his most enduring fame may result from the enthusiasm with which he inspired others and the encouragement and opportunity that he afforded to all earnest workers. The recipients of his aid can be numbered by hundreds, and many of them are to-day his worthy successors in various fields; and their places in turn will gradually be taken by a vast number of men and women who will perpetuate his memory by efficiently and reverently continuing his work.

This evidence of the donor's beneficence is a noble and impressive memorial of one who merited his country's profoundest gratitude; but the bust signifies something more, for it is a recognition of that zeal, fidelity, self-sacrifice, intelligence and strength in the American character so preeminently typified by Spencer Fullerton Baird.


Joseph Leidy

By Professor WILLIAM KEITH BROOKS

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY

Joseph Leidy was born in Philadelphia, there he passed his three score years and ten, and there he died. For forty-five years he was an officer of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Science, and a professor in the University of Pennsylvania for forty years. His character was simple and earnest, and he had such a modest opinion of his talents and of his work that the honors and rewards that began to come to him in his younger days, from learned societies in all parts of the world, and continued to come for the rest of his life were an unfailing surprise to him.

His knowledge of anatomy, and zoology, and botany, and mineralogy