/> S. S. Cox, and others.



Not alone at the Capitol were memorial services held for Professor

Henry. Before the United States National Academy of Sciences, before the

American Association for the Advancement of Science, before the

Philosophical Society of Washington,--of all these he had been

president,--before the College of New Jersey at Princeton, where he was

Professor of Natural Philosophy for fourteen years, before the Albany

Institute, of which he was one of the original members, and before

various other societies in which he had been a leading spirit, heartfelt

testimony was given to America's loss in the death of a great scholar

and a good man.



Joseph Henry was born in Albany, N. Y., December 17, 1797, or 1799,

probably the latter date, this uncertainty arising from the illegibility

of the faded records in the old family Bible. His grandparents came from

Scotland, landing in this country June 16, 1775, the day before the

battle of Bunker Hill. The father, William Henry, of whom little is

known, died when his first son, Joseph, was nine years old. The boy had

gone two years previously to live with his maternal grandmother at

Galway, in the county of Saratoga, N. Y.



Joseph's mother is remembered as a lady of great refinement, delicate in

form and feature, and very beautiful in her youth. She was deeply

devotional, and probably to this fact is partially due Professor Henry's

earnest religious character through life.



At the district school of Galway, under Israel Phelps, Joseph exhibited

no special aptitude for books, though he showed an inquisitive mind. At

the age of ten, he was placed in a store kept by a Mr. Broderick, who

was very kind to him, allowing him to attend school in the afternoons.



His fondness for reading developed from a singular circumstance. Having

lost a pet rabbit, which had run into an opening in the foundation wall

of the village meeting-house, he crept through the hole on his hands and

knees, to find the runaway. Discovering a light through a crevice,

boy-like, he decided to investigate his surroundings. He soon reached

the vestibule of the building, and found there a book-case containing

the village library. The first book which attracted his attention was

Brooke's "Fool of Quality," a work of fiction. He began to read, and

soon forgot about his rabbit.



From this time he made frequent visits to the library, by the

underground passage, reading all the novels he could find. In the

evening, to the lads who gathered about the stove in the village store,

he rehearsed the wonderful things he had read. He was a handsome,

slender lad, of delicate complexion, vivacious manners, and a great

favorite. Mr. Broderick, the proprietor, enjoyed the stories, and

finally obtained proper access to the library for his young clerk.



When about thirteen or fourteen, Joseph was apprenticed to Mr. John F.

Doty of Albany, a watch-maker and silversmith. He found very little

pleasure in the trade, and was probably glad when, after two years, the

apprenticeship came to an end, through Mr. Doty leaving the business.



Of course he was out of work. He was very fond of the theatre, and,

having been behind the scenes, had learned how stage effects are

produced. He now joined a private theatrical company, called "The

Rostrum," and was soon made president of the society. He dramatized a

story, and wrote a comedy, both of which were acted. He seemed destined

to become an actor, probably not with the approval of his Scotch

Presbyterian mother.



Lives are sometimes changed by seemingly trivial events, yet nothing is

trivial that influences a human being. Garfield said, "To every man of

great original power there comes, in early youth, a moment of sudden

discovery--of self-recognition--when his own nature is revealed to

himself, when he catches for the first time a strain of that immortal

song to which his own spirit answers, and which becomes thenceforth and

forever the inspiration of his life.



"'Like noble music unto noble words.'"



That "moment of sudden discovery" came to Henry at sixteen. A slight

accident had confined him to his mother's house for a few days. A young

Scotch gentleman, Robert Boyle, who was boarding with her, had left upon

the table of his chamber an unostentatious book, "Lectures on

Experimental Philosophy, Astronomy, and Chemistry: by G. Gregory, D.D.,

Vicar of Westham."



The book begins by asking several questions: "You throw a stone, or

shoot an arrow into the air; why does it not go forward in the line or

direction that you give it? Why does it stop at a certain distance, and

then return to you?... On the contrary, why does flame or smoke always

mount upward, though no force is used to send them in that direction?

And why should not the flame of a candle drop toward the floor when you

reverse it, or hold it downward, instead of turning up and ascending

into the air?... Again, you look into a clear well of water, and see

your own face and figure, as if painted there. Why is this? You are

told that it is done by reflection of light. But what is reflection of

light?"



Henry took up this book and began to read. Soon it seemed more

interesting than Brooke's "Fool of Quality" and all the romances. At the

very next meeting of the theatrical society, he resigned the presidency,

telling his companions that he should devote his life to solid studies.



Robert Boyle, seeing that the youth was interested in the book, gave it

to him. It was ever after preserved in Professor Henry's library, with

these words written on the fly-leaf: "This book, although by no means a

profound work, has, under Providence, exerted a remarkable influence

upon my life. It accidentally fell into my hands when I was about

sixteen years old, and was the first work I ever read with attention. It

opened to me a new world of thought and enjoyment; invested things

before almost unnoticed with the highest interest; fixed my mind on the

study of nature, and caused me to resolve, at the time of reading it,

that I would immediately commence to devote my life to the acquisition

of knowledge."



This resolution was at once put in practice, by attending a

night-school, where he soon learned all that the master could teach. His

next attempt at education was to learn grammar of a travelling teacher,

and so skilled did he become that he made a grammatical tour of the

country districts, in imitation of his instructor, earning enough money

to enter the Albany Academy. When more money was needed, the

enterprising youth found a situation as head of a district school, at

eight dollars a month! He pleased his patrons so well that he received

fifteen dollars for the second month. Later, he became an assistant in

the academy, while still a pupil.



Says Orlando Meads, LL.D.: "When a boy in the Albany Academy in 1823 and

1824, it was my pleasure and privilege, when released from recitations,

to resort to the chemical laboratory and lecture room. There might be

found from day to day through the winter, earnestly engaged in

experiments upon steam and upon a small steam-engine, and in chemical

and other scientific investigations, two young men--both active members

of the 'Lyceum,' then very different in their external circumstances and

prospects in life, but of kindred tastes and sympathies; the one was

Richard Varick De Witt, the other was Joseph Henry, as yet unknown to

fame, but already giving promise of those rare qualities of mind and

character which have since raised him to the very first rank among the

experimental philosophers of his time.



"Chemistry at that time was exciting great interest, and Dr. Beck's

courses of chemical lectures, conducted every winter in the lecture room

of the academy, were attended not only by the students, but by all that

was most intelligent and fashionable in the city. Henry ... was then Dr.

Beck's chemical assistant, and already an admirable experimentalist,

and he availed himself to the utmost of the advantages thus afforded of

prosecuting his investigations in chemistry, electricity, and

galvanism." Dr. T. Romeyn Beck, the principal, had become interested in

the studious young man, and, when he left the academy, recommended him

to one of the trustees, General Stephen Van Rensselaer, as a private

tutor to his sons. Young Henry's services were engaged, and, as his

teaching required but about three hours each day, he devoted his leisure

to higher mathematics, in conjunction with chemistry, physiology, and

anatomy, as he had decided to become a physician. In his mathematical

studies he went so far as to read the Mecanique Analytique of La

Grange.



His delicate constitution seemed unable to bear the continued strain of

study and teaching, and at twenty-six, through the friendship of an

influential judge, Henry received the appointment of engineer in the

survey of a road between the Hudson River and Lake Erie, a distance of

about three hundred miles. This gave him out-of-door life, which he

needed, and, though much of his work was done in winter, in deep snow,

making his way through dense forests, he entirely regained his health,

and gave such excellent satisfaction that he was asked to construct a

canal in Ohio, and assist in a mining enterprise in Mexico. Both of

these he refused, accepting the chair of Mathematics and Natural

Philosophy in the Albany Academy, at the urgent solicitation of his

friend, Dr. Beck.



Elected in the spring, and not entering upon his work till autumn, he

spent the intervening months in geological exploration in New York

State. Every hour was occupied. He had commenced solid study in earnest,

as he had told the members of the "Rostrum" he should do.



Having entered upon his profession, he taught mathematics seven hours

daily. But he found time to make experiments in natural philosophy. The

first paper which he brought before the Albany Institute was, "On the

Chemical and Mechanical Effects of Steam: with Experiments designed to

illustrate the Great Reduction of Temperature in Steam of High

Elasticity when suddenly expanded."



His next published scientific paper was, "On the Production of Cold by

the Rarefaction of Air: accompanied by Experiments." "One of these

experiments most strikingly illustrated the great reduction of

temperature which takes place on the sudden rarefaction of condensed

air. Half a pint of water was poured into a strong copper vessel of a

globular form, and having a capacity of five gallons; a tube of

one-fourth of an inch caliber, with a number of holes near the lower

end, and a stop-cock attached to the other extremity, was firmly screwed

into the neck of the vessel; the lower end of the tube dipped into the

water, but a number of holes were above the surface of the liquid, so

that a jet of air mingled with water might be thrown from the fountain.



"The apparatus was then charged with condensed air, by means of a

powerful condensing pump, until the pressure was estimated at nine

atmospheres. During the condensation, the vessel became sensibly warm.

After suffering the apparatus to cool down to the temperature of the

room, the stop-cock was opened: the air rushed out with great violence,

carrying with it a quantity of water, which was instantly converted into

snow. After a few seconds, the tube became filled with ice, which almost

entirely stopped the current of air. The neck of the vessel was then

partially unscrewed, so as to allow the condensed air to rush out around

the sides of the screw; in this state the temperature of the whole

interior atmosphere was so much reduced as to freeze the remaining water

in the vessel."



Other pamphlets followed this publication, but in 1831 a notable paper

in the "American Journal of Science and the Arts" brought Henry's name

to the front line of discoverers in electro-magnetism. Sturgeon made the

first electro-magnet; Henry made the electro-magnet what it is.



Says W. B. Taylor, in an address before the "Philosophical Society of

Washington:" "The electro-magnet figured and described by Sturgeon

consisted of a small bar or stout iron wire bent into a [Inverted

U-Symbol] or horse-shoe form, having a copper wire wound loosely

around it in eighteen turns, with the ends of the wire dipping into

mercury-cups connected with the respective poles of a battery having

one hundred and thirty square inches of active surface."



Henry improved upon this in 1828, but in March of 1829 he exhibited

before the Institute a somewhat larger magnet. "A round piece of iron

about one-quarter of an inch in diameter was bent into the usual form of

a horse-shoe, and, instead of loosely coiling around it a few feet of

wire as is usually described, it was tightly wound with thirty-five feet

of wire covered with silk, so as to form about four hundred turns; a

pair of small galvanic plates, which could be dipped into a tumbler of

diluted acid, was soldered to the ends of the wire, and the whole

mounted on a stand. With these small plates, the horse-shoe became much

more powerfully magnetic than another of the same size and wound in the

usual manner, by the application of a battery composed of twenty-eight

plates of copper and zinc each eight inches square."



"To Henry, therefore," says Mr. Taylor, "belongs the exclusive credit of

having first constructed the magnetic 'spool' or 'bobbin,' that form of

coil since universally employed for every application of

electro-magnetism, of induction, or of magneto-electrics. This was his

first great contribution to the science and to the art of galvanic

magnetization....



"But, in addition to this large gift to science, Henry has the

preeminent claim to popular gratitude of having first practically

worked out the differing functions of two entirely different kinds

of electro-magnet; the one surrounded with numerous coils of no great

length, designated by him the 'quantity' magnet, the other surrounded

with a continuous coil of very great length, designated by him the

'intensity' magnet.... Never should it be forgotten that he who first

exalted the 'quantity' magnet of Sturgeon from a power of twenty pounds

to a power of twenty hundred pounds was the absolute CREATOR of the

'intensity' magnet; and that the principles involved in this creation

constitute the indispensable basis of every form of the electro-magnetic

telegraph since invented."



Professor Silliman of Yale College said: "Henry has the honor of having

constructed by far the most powerful magnets that have ever been known;

and his last, weighing (armature and all) but 82-1/2 pounds, sustains

over a ton;--which is eight times more powerful than any magnet hitherto

known in Europe."



"In 1831," says Professor Henry, "I arranged around one of the upper

rooms of the Albany Academy a wire of more than a mile in length,

through which I was enabled to make signals by sounding a bell. The

mechanical arrangement for effecting this object was simply a steel bar,

permanently magnetized, of about ten inches in length, supported on a

pivot, and placed with its north end between the two arms of a

horse-shoe magnet. When the latter was excited by the current, the end

of the bar thus placed was attracted by one arm of the horse-shoe and

repelled by the other, and was thus caused to move in a horizontal plane

and its further end to strike a bell suitably adjusted." This was the

first "sounding" electro-magnetic telegraph. With this growing fame he

was not disposed to think too highly of himself. A friend, noticing a

look of sadness in the face of the young professor, said to

him,--"Albany will one day be proud of her son;" and so it proved.



A year before this, in May, 1830, Professor Henry had married, at

thirty-one, Harriet L. Alexander of Schenectady, N. Y., a cultivated and

helpful woman.



In 1832, Princeton College needed a professor of natural philosophy.

Henry's friends heartily commended him for the position. Silliman

said,--"Henry has no superior among the scientific men of the country,"

and Professor Renwick of Columbia College, New York, said, "He has no

equal."



After six years at the Albany Academy, Henry removed to Princeton, where

for fourteen years he added constantly to his fame and usefulness by

original work. Of his discoveries in these fruitful years he gives the

following summary, at the request of a friend:--



"I arrived in Princeton in November, 1832, and, as soon as I became

fully settled in the chair which I occupied, I recommenced my

investigations, constructed a still more powerful electro-magnet than I

had made before,--one which would sustain over three thousand

pounds,--and with it illustrated to my class the manner in which a large

amount of power might, by means of a relay magnet, be called into

operation at the distance of many miles.... The electro-magnetic

telegraph was first invented by me, in Albany, in 1830.... At the time

of making my original experiments on electro-magnetism in Albany, I was

urged by a friend to take out a patent, both for its application to

machinery and to the telegraph; but this I declined, on the ground that

I did not then consider it compatible with the dignity of science to

confine the benefits which might be derived from it to the exclusive use

of any individual. In this perhaps I was too fastidious."



Professor Asa Gray well said, "For the telegraph and for

electro-magnetic machines, what was now wanted was not discovery, but

invention; not the ascertainment of principles, but the devising of

methods." Morse is not to be less honored because somebody discovered

the principle, which he and others utilized for the race, any more than

Edison, Bell, and others, because Faraday and Henry helped to make their

grand work possible.



"My next investigation, after being settled at Princeton," says

Professor Henry, "was in relation to electro-dynamic induction. Mr.

Faraday had discovered that when a current of galvanic electricity was

passed through a wire from a battery, a current in an opposite direction

was induced in a wire arranged parallel to this conductor. I discovered

that an induction of a similar kind took place in the primary conducting

wire itself, so that a current which, in its passage through a short

wire conductor, would neither produce sparks nor shocks would, if the

wire were sufficiently long, produce both those phenomena....



"A series of investigations was afterwards made, resulting in producing

inductive currents of different orders, having different directions,

made up of waves alternately in opposite directions....



"Another series of investigations, of a parallel character, was made in

regard to ordinary or frictional electricity. In the course of these it

was shown that electro-dynamic inductive action of ordinary electricity

was of a peculiar character, and that effects could be produced by it at

a remarkable distance. For example, if a shock were sent through a wire

on the outside of a building, electrical effects could be exhibited in a

parallel wire within the building."...



After this, investigations were made in atmospheric induction; induction

from thunder clouds; in regard to lightning rods; on substances capable

of exhibiting phosphorescence, such as the diamond, which, when exposed

to the direct rays of the sun, and then removed to a dark place, emits a

pale blue light; on a method of determining the velocity of projectiles;

on the heat of the spots on the sun as compared with the rest of his

disk; the detection of heat by the thermal telescope--"when the object

was a horse in a distant field, the radiant heat from the animal was

distinctly perceptible at a distance of at least several hundred yards;"

on the cohesion of liquids; on the tenacity of soapwater in films; on

the origin of mechanical power, and the nature of vital force.



Henry says:--



"The mechanical power exerted by animals is due to the passage of

organized matter in the stomach, from an unstable to a stable

equilibrium; or, as it were, from the combustion of the food. It

therefore follows that animal power is referable to the same source as

that from the combustion of fuel--namely, developed power of the sun's

beams. But, according to this view, what is vitality? It is that

mysterious principle--not mechanical power--which determines the form

and arranges the atoms of organized matter, employing for this purpose

the power which is derived from the food....



"Suppose a vegetable organism impregnated with a germ (a potato, for

instance) is planted below the surface of the ground, in damp soil,

under a temperature sufficient for vegetation. If we examine it from

time to time, we find it sending down rootlets into the earth, and stems

and leaves upward into the air. After the leaves have been fully

expanded we shall find the tuber entirely exhausted, nothing but a skin

remaining. The same effect will take place if the potato be placed in a

warm cellar; it will continue to grow until all the starch and gluten

are exhausted, when it will cease to increase. If, however, we now place

it in the light, it will commence to grow again, and increase in size

and weight. If we weigh the potato previous to the experiment, and the

plant after it has ceased to grow in the dark, we shall find that the

weight of the latter is a little more than half of the original tuber.

The question then is, what has become of the material which filled the

sac of the potato? The answer is, one part has run down into carbonic

acid and water, and in this running down has evolved the power to build

up the other part into the new plant. After the leaves have been formed

and the plant exposed to the light of the sun, the developed power of

its rays decomposes the carbonic acid of the atmosphere, and thus

furnishes the pabulum and the power necessary to the further development

of the organization.



"The same is the case with wheat, and all other grains that are

germinated in the earth. Besides the germ of the future plant, there is

stored away, around the germ, the starch and gluten to furnish the power

necessary to its development, and also the food to build it up, until it

reaches the surface of the earth and can draw the sources of its future

growth from the power of the sunbeam. In the case of fungi and other

plants that grow in the dark, they derive the power and the pabulum from

surrounding vegetable matter in process of decay, or in that of evolving

power."...



"What then is the office of vitality? We say that it is analogous to

that of the engineer who directs the power of the steam-engine in the

execution of its work."



"If he had published in 1844, with some fulness, as he then wrought

them out," says Professor Gray, "his conception and his attractive

illustrations of the sources, transformation, and equivalence of

mechanical power, and given them fitting publicity, Henry's name would

have been prominent among the pioneers and founders of the modern

doctrine of the conservation of energy."



Henry always defined science as the "knowledge of natural law," and law

as the "will of God." He found all things, even the storms, under the

"control of laws--fixed, immutable, and eternal," and rejoiced in

believing that "a Supreme Intelligence who knows no change" governs all.

For him there was never any conflict between science and religion.



In February, 1837, Henry went to Europe, accompanied by Prof. Alexander

D. Bache, at the head of the United States Coast Survey for eighteen

years. He became the friend of Faraday; of Wheatstone, then Professor of

Experimental Philosophy in King's College, who was engaged in developing

his system of the needle telegraph; of Arago, Gay-Lussac, and other

noted men. "At King's College," says Prof. Alfred M. Mayer, "Faraday,

Wheatstone, Daniell, and Henry had met to try and evolve the electric

spark from the thermopile. Each in turn attempted it and failed. Then

came Henry's turn. He succeeded, calling in the aid of his discovery of

the effect of a long interpolar wire wrapped around a piece of soft

iron. Faraday became as wild as a boy, and, jumping up, shouted:

'Hurrah for the Yankee experiment!'" "It is not generally known or

appreciated," says Professor Mayer, "that Henry and Faraday

independently discovered the means of producing the electric current and

the electric spark from a magnet.... Henry cannot be placed on record as

the first discoverer of the magneto-electric current, but it can be

claimed that he stands alone as its second independent discoverer."

Both James D. Forbes of Edinburgh and Henry obtained the spark, but were

anticipated by Faraday.



Henry spoke before the various scientific societies. He was no longer

the apprentice to a watch-maker, or the leader of private theatricals,

but a distinguished scholar. By his own will and energy he had attained

to this enviable position.



Meantime a man of science, in England, had thought out a great project

for the benefit of his fellow-men. James Smithson, a wealthy English

chemist, a Fellow of the Royal Society, unmarried, died in 1829. He left

his property, over five hundred and forty thousand dollars, after the

death of his nephew, provided that he died childless, "to the United

States of America, to found at Washington, under the name of the

Smithsonian Institution, an establishment for the increase and diffusion

of knowledge among men." The nephew died six years later, unmarried.



This was indeed a wonderful gift,--and from a stranger! Difficulties at

once presented themselves. How could the property be used "for the

increase and diffusion of knowledge among men"? "For ten years," says

Garfield, "Congress wrestled with those nine words of Smithson, and

could not handle them. Some political philosophers of that period held

that we had no constitutional authority to accept the gift at all, and

proposed to send it back to England. Every conceivable proposition was

made."



John Quincy Adams desired a great astronomical observatory. One person

wished an agricultural school; another, a college for women; another,

that the funds should be devoted to meteorological observations all over

the Union. Finally, a board of regents was appointed, with power to

choose a suitable person as secretary.



He must be a learned man, a wise financier, with good judgment and

pleasant manners. Professor Henry fulfilled all the conditions. He was

admired for his learning; in finance he was wise, as thirty years have

proved, the institute with its endowment now being valued at one and a

half million dollars; his kindly manner made him accessible, willing to

listen to any one who hoped or believed he had discovered something in

the line of knowledge. A man who can be harsh or cold to an ignorant

person, or indeed to anybody, does not deserve to hold any public

position. With natural quickness of temper in early life, he had gained

remarkable self-control. Like Baron Cuvier, he had no tolerance for

sarcasm or "practical jokes." Henry was unanimously chosen, entering

upon his duties December 3, 1846. He had a definite plan of the work

which ought to be done, and "after due deliberation it received the

almost unanimous approval of the scientific world."



He believed that the money should be used in original scientific work;

by helping men to publish the results of such work; to aid in varied

explorations; to send scientific publications all over the world. The

institution is now the principal agent of scientific and literary

communication between the old world and the new. The number of foreign

institutions and correspondents receiving the Smithsonian publications

exceeds two thousand, scattered from New Zealand and India to Yokohama,

in Japan, and Cape Town, in Southern Africa. The weight of matter sent

abroad for ten years, ending 1877, was ninety-nine thousand pounds.

Among the first subjects taken up by the institution for investigation

was that of American archaeology, an attempt to ascertain the industrial,

social, and intellectual character of the earliest races on our

continent. The first publication of "Smithsonian Contributions" was a

work on the mounds and earthworks found in the Mississippi valley, a

most fascinating study.



The Smithsonian, "first in the world, organized a comprehensive system

of telegraphic meteorology, and has thus given first to Europe and Asia,

and now to the United States, that most beneficent national application

of modern science--the storm warnings."



So much of value has been gathered by government surveys and by

voluntary contribution that the institution has sent duplicates to

various societies of specimens in geology, mineralogy, botany, zooelogy,

and archaeology, while it has remaining, "boxed up, varieties of art and

nature" more than enough to twice fill the halls and galleries of the

building.



The work of Professor Henry grew more and more onerous, but he seemed to

leave nothing undone. For many years he served gratuitously as chairman

of the Lighthouse Board. When a substitute was needed for sperm oil,

after almost numberless experiments, he showed that lard oil is the best

illuminant, thereby saving the country over one hundred thousand dollars

yearly, since 1865.



During the last twelve years of his life, he devoted much time to our

system of coast fog-signals, making "contributions to the science of

acoustics, unquestionably the most important of the century."



Observations were made, among other places, at Block Island and Point

Judith. The distance between these fog-horns is seventeen miles, and the

sound of one can be distinctly heard at the other when the air is quiet

and homogeneous; but if the wind blows from one towards the other, the

listener at the station from which the wind blows is unable to hear the

other horn.



While at work in the Lighthouse Depot, in Staten Island, December, 1877,

Henry's right hand became in a paralytic condition. This foretold that

the end was near. He died at noon, May 13, 1878, asking, with his latest

breath, which way the wind came, as though still thinking how to save

human lives in a fog at sea. He was buried May 16, at Rock Creek

Cemetery, near Georgetown, D. C. He was ready when death came. Two weeks

before, he said to a friend: "I may die at any moment. I would like to

live long enough to complete some things I have undertaken, but I am

content to go. I have had a happy life, and I hope I have been able to

do some good."



Several times during his connection with the Smithsonian Institution he

was offered more lucrative positions, but he remained where he believed

he could be most useful. He was called to the professorship of chemistry

in the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania, with double

the salary of his secretaryship; but he declined. He was urged also to

take the presidency of the college at Princeton. John C. Calhoun desired

him to accept a professorship in the University of Virginia, as there

were so many difficulties in connection with the secretaryship. Henry

declined, saying that "his honor was committed to the institution."

Calhoun grasped his hand, exclaiming, "Professor Henry, you are a man

after my own heart."



He seemed to have no time to accumulate money. Fortunately, a fund of

forty thousand dollars has been raised by friends, the income of which

goes to his family during life, and afterwards to the National Academy

of Sciences, to be devoted to original research.



In character he was above reproach. He said, "I think that immorality

and great mental power exercised in the discovery of scientific truths

are incompatible with each other; and that more error is introduced from

defect in moral sense than from want of intellectual capacity."



He loved nature. "A life devoted exclusively to the study of a single

insect," he said, "is not spent in vain. No animal, however

insignificant, is isolated; it forms a part of the great system of

nature, and is governed by the same general laws which control the most

prominent beings of the organic world." In 1870, when gazing upon the

Aar glacier, from the Rhone valley, he exclaimed to his daughter, while

the tears coursed down his cheeks: "This is a place to die in. We should

go no further." A really great man is never afraid to show that he has a

tender heart.



He loved his home. Out from it, in his early married life, two children

went by death, and later, an only son in his early manhood. Three

daughters were left him. One of them records in her diary: "Had father

with us all the evening. I modelled his profile in clay, while he read

'Thomson's Seasons' to us. In the earlier part of the evening he seemed

restless and depressed, but the influence of the poet drove away the

cloud, and then an expression of almost childlike sweetness rested upon

his lips, singularly in contrast, yet beautifully in harmony, with, the

intellect of the brow above."



Again she writes: "We were all up until a late hour, reading poetry with

father and mother, father being the reader. He attempted 'Cowper's

Grave,' by Mrs. Browning, but was too tender-hearted to finish the

reading of it. We then laughed over the 'Address to the Mummy,' soared

to heaven with Shelley's 'Skylark,' roamed the forest with Bryant,

culled flowers from other poetical fields, and ended with 'Tam

O'Shanter.' I took for my task to recite a part of the latter from

memory, while father corrected, as if he were 'playing schoolmaster.'"



He was orderly and painstaking in his work, deciding with great caution.

Prof. Asa Gray tells a story of his boyhood which well illustrates this.

"It goes back to the time when he was first allowed to have a pair of

boots, and to choose for himself the style of them. He was living with

his grandmother, in the country, and the village Crispin could offer no

great choice of patterns; indeed, it was narrowed down to the

alternative of round toes or square. Daily the boy visited the shop and

pondered the alternatives, even while the manufacture was going on,

until, at length, the shoemaker, who could brook no more delay, took the

dilemma by both horns, and produced the most remarkable pair of boots

the wearer ever had; one boot round-toed, the other square-toed.... He

probably never again postponed decision till it was too late to choose."



A single incident illustrates the kindness of the man, who was always

called the "model of a Christian gentleman." "Early in the war, in the

autumn of 1861, a caller at the presidential mansion, very anxious to

see the chief magistrate of the nation, was informed that he could not

then be seen, being engaged in an important private consultation. The

caller, not to be repulsed, wrote on a piece of paper that he must see

Mr. Lincoln personally, on a matter of vital and pressing importance to

the public welfare. This, of course, secured his admission to the

presence of Mr. Lincoln, who was sitting with a middle-aged gentleman.

Observing the hesitancy of the visitor, the President told him he might

speak freely, as only a friend was present.



"Whereupon the visitor announced that for several evenings past he had

observed a light exhibited on the highest of the Smithsonian towers, for

a few minutes, about nine o'clock, with mysterious movements, which, he

felt satisfied, were designed as signals to the rebels encamped on

Munson's Hill, in Virginia. Having gravely listened to this information

with raised eyebrows, but a subdued twinkle of the eye, the President

turned to his companion, saying, 'What do you think of that, Professor

Henry?'



"Rising with a smile, the person addressed replied that, from the time

mentioned, he presumed the mysterious light shone from the lantern of

an attendant who was required at nine o'clock each evening to observe

and record the indications of the meteorological instruments placed on

the tower. The painful confusion of the officious informant at once

appealed to Henry's sensibility, and, quite unmindful of the President,

he approached the visitor, offering his hand, and with a courteous

regard counselled him never to be abashed at the issue of a

conscientious discharge of duty, and never to let the fear of ridicule

interfere with its faithful execution."



Henry had learned how to triumph over the misfortunes of life. In 1865,

the Smithsonian building was partially burned, with nearly one hundred

thousand letters, his notes of original research for thirty years, the

annual report in manuscript, ready for the press, a valuable library,

etc.



"A few years ago," he said, "such a calamity would have paralyzed me for

future efforts, but in my present view of life I take it as the

dispensation of a kind and wise Providence, and trust that it will work

to my spiritual advantage."



A bronze statue of Joseph Henry, by W. W. Story, costing fifteen

thousand dollars, was unveiled in the grounds of the Smithsonian

Institution, April 19, 1883. Ten thousand people were assembled to

witness the ceremonies. Noah Porter, ex-president of Yale College,

delivered the oration. There it will tell the story of a self-made

man--of whom Garfield said: "Remembering his great career as a man of

science, as a man who served his government with singular ability and

faithfulness, who was loved and venerated by every circle, who blessed

with the light of his friendship the worthiest and the best, whose life

added new lustre to the glory of the human race, we shall be most

fortunate if ever in the future we see his like again."



Prof. Joseph Henry was succeeded by Prof. Spencer F. Baird as secretary

of the Smithsonian Institution. He died August 19, 1887, and Prof. S. P.

Langley was called to the position, accepting the office November 18,

1887. The mantle of Henry has fallen upon a worthy successor; a scholar

who has given us, among other works, the "New Astronomy," whose beauty

of diction, breadth of knowledge, and exquisite illustrations are so

well remembered, as it appeared first in the pages of the Century

Magazine.