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JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS XLIII

establishment, for the last nine years as its chief executive officer, under whose sagacious management it has greatly prospered and widely extended its usefulness and its renown.

2. That the National Museum, of which this Institution is the administrator, and the Fish Commission, which is practically affiliated to it - both organized and in a just sense created by our late Secretary - are by this bereavement deprived of the invaluable and unpaid services of their indefatigable official load. 

3. That the cultivators of science, both in this country and abroad, have to deplore the loss of a veteran and distinguished naturalist, who was from early years a sedulous and successful investigator, whose native gifts and whose experience in systematic biological work served in no small degree to adapt him to the administrative duties which filled the later years of his life, but whose knowledge and whose interest in science widened and deepened as his opportunities for special investigation lessened, and who accordingly used his best endeavors to promote the researches of his fellow naturalists in every part of the world. 

4. That his kindly disposition, equable temper, singleness of aim, and unsullied purity of motive, along with his facile mastery of affairs, greatly endeared him to his subordinates, secured to him the confidence and trust of those whose influence he sought for the advancement of the interests he had at heart, and won the high regard and warm affection of those who, like the members of this Board, were officially and intimately associated with him.

5. That without intruding into the domain of private sorrow the Regents of the Institution would respectfully offer to the family of their late Secretary the assurance of their profound sympathy.

6. That the Regents invite the near associate of the late Secretary, Professor Goode, to prepare a memorial of the life and service of Professor Baird for publication in the ensuing annual report of the Institution.

The resolutions were seconded by Dr. Coppée, who made the following remarks:

Mr. Chancellor, I rise to second the resolutions.

As I have been to some extent associated with Professor Baird as Regent since 1874, when I found him here as Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, to which post he was appointed in 1850, it may be proper that I should ask your patience while I add a single word to the eloquent tribute of just eulogium offered to his memory in the resolutions of Professor Gray and the committee.

When the distinguished Professor Henry was called to his rest and reward in 1878, amid tokens of grief in yonder Capitol, there was a hearty concurrence of voices in the Board of Regents to appoint Professor Baird to the vacant place. At that time, sir, it seemed, in contradiction of the maxim of the French philosopher, that he was a necessary man. His large scientific scope, his great knowledge and success as a specialist in natural history just when that branch of science needed particular attention to meet its expanding claims, his wonderful industry, his intimate acquaintance with the system and the details of the Institution, his thorough and brotherly sympathy with its scientific workers, and, withal, his great and increasing reputation, formed,