CHIEF JUSTICE CHASE AND PROFESSOR AGASSIZ. REMARKS MADE IN THE BOARD OF REGENTS OF THE DECEMBER 19, 1873. Ar a meeting of the Regents of the Smithsonian Institution held at the above date, the Secretary, Professor Joseph Henry, announced the deaths, since the last meeting of the Board, of two of the most prominent members of the Board, Chief Justice Chase and Professor Agassiz. Mr. Hannibal Hamlin moved the appointment of a committee to prepare resolutions expressive of the sentiments of the Board in regard to the death of these Regents. Mr. Garfield seconded the motion in the following remarks. M1 R. CHANCELLOR,-I rise to second the motion for the appointment of a committee to draft resolutions in reference to the death of our distinguished brother Regents, Chief Justice Chase and Professor Agassiz. Never before in a single year has the Board of Regents suffered so severe a loss. It would be difficult to find, in any organization, two men more eminent, and representing a wider range of culture, than the two Regents who have fallen since the last meeting of this Board. This is not the occasion to speak at length on the subject; but as my term of service will expire before the next meeting, I ask the indulgence of the Board while I refer briefly to some of the marked characteristics of our late distinguished associates. Few Americans have filled so many high places of trust and honor as Salmon P. Chase; and few have brought to the discharge of the duties of their high stations such masterly ability and such rare and varied accomplishments. His career adds another to the many illustrations of the truth, that he who loses his life for the truth's sake shall find it. In his early manhood, following his own convictions of duty, he committed himself without reserve to a cause which seemed, at the time, to shut him out from all hope of public preferment. He stood by his convictions, and lived, not only to see his doctrines prevail, but to be one of the honored leaders in the cause he had espoused. Whether at the bar in the practice of his profession, in the executive chair of his own State, in the national Senate, as the great finance minister of the republic in the stormy days of war, or as Chief Justice of the United States, there ran through his whole life a depth of conviction, a clearness of comprehension, and a force of utterance, that made his power felt, and marked him as a man who filled and overfilled, honored and adorned, the great stations to which he was called. If in the course of his high career he felt the promptings of that ambition which has been called "the last infirmity of noble mind," it must be acknowledged that he aspired to no place beyond his capacity to honor. Throughout his long and honored life the cares and demands of public place did not diminish his ardent love for the pursuits of science and the keen enjoyment of literature and art. The great masters of song were his daily companions. I was his guest for many weeks, during the stormy and troublous winter of 1862-63, when to the deep anxieties of the war were added the gravest financial problems that have ever confronted an American Secretary of the Treasury, and many a time, at the close of a weary day of anxious care and exhausting labor, I have seen him lay aside the heavy load, and, in the quiet of his study, read aloud, or repeat from memory, the rich verse of Tennyson, or of some other great master of song. It was this life of art and sentiment, within the stormy life of public duty, that fed and refreshed his spirit, and kept his heart young, while his outer life grew venerable with years and honors. As the Chancellor of this Institution, we saw in happy and harmonious action his ample knowledge of our institutions, his wide experience of finance, his reverential love for science and art, and his unshaken faith in the future of his country as the grand theatre for the highest development of all that is best and greatest in human nature. No contribution to science offered to this Board escaped his attention. Nothing that was high or worthy in human pursuits failed to elicit his appreciative and powerful support. In Professor Agassiz we have lost a man of kindred powers, whose life was spent in a different, though hardly less conspicuous field of action. Few lives were ever so sincerely and entirely devoted to the highest and best aims of science. I was led to appreciate this by a remark which Professor Agassiz made to me several years ago, which is, I believe, the key to his own career, and deserves to be remembered by all who would follow in his footsteps. His remark was, that he had made it the rule of his life to abandon any intellectual pursuit the moment it became commercially valuable. that He knew that others would utilize what he discovered, when he brought down the great truths of science to the level of commercial values, a thousand hands would be ready to take them and make them valuable in the markets of the world. Since then I have thought of him as one of that small but elect company of men who dwell on the upper heights, above the plane of commercial values, and who love and seek truth for its own sake. Such men are indeed the prophets, the priests, the interpreters of nature. Few of their number have learned more, at first hand, than Professor Agassiz; and few, if any, have submitted their theories to severer tests. It was a great risk for the astronomer Leverrier to announce that the perturbations of the planet Uranus could only be accounted for by a planet as yet unknown, and to predict its size and place in the solar system, trusting to the telescope to confirm or explode his theory. But perhaps Professor Agassiz took even a greater risk than this. Who does not remember the letter that he addressed to Professor Peirce of the Coast Survey, just before he set out on the Hassler expedition, predicting in detail what evidences of glacial action he expected to find on the continent of South America, and what species of marine animals he expected to discover in the deep-sea soundings along that coast? He risked his own reputation as a scientific man on the predictions then committed to writing. What member of this Board will forget the lecture he delivered here after his return, detailing the discoveries he had made, and showing how completely his predictions had been verified? While he was the prince of scholars, and a recognized teacher of mankind, yet Agassiz always preserved that childlike spirit which made him the most amiable of men. He studied nature with a reverence born of his undoubting faith. He believed that the universe was a cosmos, not a chaos; and that throughout all its vast domains there are indubitable evidences of creative power and supreme wisdom. We have special cause for regret that his early death has deprived this community and the world of a series of lectures which were to have been delivered here this winter, on subjects of the deepest interest to science. His death will be deplored in whatever quarter of the globe genius is admired and science cherished. He has left behind him as a legacy to mankind a name and a fame which will abide as an everlasting possession. REVENUES AND EXPENDIT SPEECH DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESE MARCH 5, 1874. ON the 16th of February, 1874, Mr. Garfield, from th on Appropriations, introduced the bill making appropria legislative, executive, and judicial expenses of the govern fiscal year ending June 30, 1875, and for other purpose the House resolved itself into Committee of the Whole fo eration of said bill, when he made the following speech. R. CHAIRMAN,-I regret that I have to as of the day; but in the present condition of the pub I am unwilling longer to delay the consideration of priation bills. The bill now pending before the Committee of the the best gauge by which to measure the magnitud of the national government. Its provisions exten leading function of the government in the three gro ments, legislative, executive, and judicial, and i civil functions of the military and naval establishmen propriates for all the salaries and contingent expenses officers and employees of the civil service. If its could be thrown upon canvas, they would form an ou exhibiting the character and the magnitude of the g of the United States. This bill is the proper stand which to study the public expenditures, to examine t of expenditures to taxation, and of both to the pros well-being of the nation. What the House may do |