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LIBRfiRY OF CONGRESS 
 
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 LIAM BARTON ROGERS, LLD. 
 
 AN ADDRESS 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE 
 
 I 
 
 SOCIETY 6F THE ALUMNI OF THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF VIRGINIA, 
 
 ON COMMENCEMENT DA Y, 
 June 27, 1883, 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM CABELL RIVES. 
 
 Publtsl)C& at tl)c Request of \\sz ^oriets of i\)t <aiuinm'. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE: 
 
 JOHN WILSON AND SON. 
 
 Slnibcrsitg '^^rcss. 
 
 1883. 
 
 X^ 
 
"Vir bonus dicendi peritus." — Cato. 
 
 " Tout homme qui veut rendre son existence utile k la soci^te, doit 
 marcher constamment vers un meme but ; ce n'est que par une con- 
 tinuite d'efforts diriges dans le meme sens qu'il peut atteindre k de 
 veri tables succes, et acquerir quelques droits k I'estime de ses contem- 
 porains et k la reconnaissance de ceux qui viendront apres lui." 
 
 Lacroix. 
 
WILLIAM BARTON ROGERS, LLD. 
 
 AN ADDRESS 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE 
 
 SOCIETY OF THE ALUMNI OF THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF VIRGINIA, 
 
 ON COMMENCEMENT DA F, 
 June 27, 1883, 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM CABELL RIVES. 
 
 ^ublisbtti at tlje Request of tf}c Sorietg of ti}e Alumni. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE : 
 
 JOHN WILSON AND SON 
 
 ^anibersitg '^Iress. 
 
 1883. 
 
PBICE LIBr.ARY 
 
 T/7/ 
 
 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 "'Hi 1 ',928 
 
 DOCUMENTS DIVISION 
 
 \V' 
 
 
 \S 
 
ADDRESS. 
 
 Mr. President and Gentlemen : — 
 
 I HAVE not felt at liberty to decline the invita- 
 tion of your Executive Committee ; and I appear 
 before you to-day to render such homage as I may 
 to the memory of the good man, and the great 
 teacher and organizer, whose death, on the thir- 
 tieth day of May of the past year, deeply touched 
 not only the heart of this University, but every 
 heart that beats throughout our wide land, in 
 sympathy with .the interests of' liearning and 
 science. 
 
 Apart from my individual desire to hang a 
 wreath — unworthy though it be — over the tomb 
 of my early instructor, I feel that there is a pecu- 
 liar appropriateness in the commemoration of 
 William Barton Rogers by the Alumni of the 
 University of Virginia. Here he passed eighteen 
 years of busy and fruitful life, — from the full 
 dawn of his young manhood to the rich maturity 
 of his middle-age, — enlightening the minds of 
 the young men of Virginia and of the South by 
 
his knowledge, and directing their aims by the 
 power of his unrivalled eloquence. Here, by 
 munificent contribution to your School of Natu- 
 ral Science, he gave substantial evidence of his 
 ever cherished wish to promote the welfare of your 
 University; and hither he came, in the evening of 
 life, to bear witness — by his presence and his 
 words of remembrance and cheer, at your Semi- 
 centennial Celebration — to his unaltered and 
 undying attachment to your Alma Mater. 
 
 It is not merely in our relations to Professor 
 Rogers as Alumni of this University that we owe 
 him the tribute of our remembrance, and of our 
 appreciation of his knowledge, his eloquence, his 
 labors, his virtues. As Virginians we owe him 
 tribute for his earlier services at William and 
 Mary, — the venerable mother who long sent from 
 her Halls a line of illustrious men, whose names 
 are written in imperishable letters on the roll of 
 the country's history. As Virginians we owe 
 him tribute for his long-continued service, as 
 Geologist of the State, — for his survey and 
 reports, — work which is soon to meet with its 
 appropriate reward, by the association of his 
 name with the loftiest of our everlasting hills. 
 
 In our wider relations as Americans, — as citi- 
 zens of a Republic that now stretches from ocean 
 to ocean, and from the thick-ribbed ice of Alaska 
 to the orange-perfumed glades of Florida, — we are 
 
 1 
 
I 
 
 indebted to him for the lustre he has shed on 
 American science, by original investigation, by 
 written and oral exposition, by constructive 
 energy and genius. We are indebted to him, 
 as the President of the National Academy of 
 Sciences, for the fulness and accuracy and variety 
 of his knowledge, for the charm of his ever ready 
 eloquence, and for the grace of his ever abounding 
 courtesy and kindliness ; and we owe him tribute 
 as — by a title " perpetual and indefeasible " — the 
 father of the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 
 nology, — an institution which has taken her 
 assured position as one of the foremost tech- 
 nological schools of our own country, and as the 
 co-equal of the most famous polytechnic schools 
 of the Old World. 
 
 In contemplating a life so long, so beneficent, 
 so distinguished, as the life of Professor Rogers, 
 the difficulty would seem to be not so much in 
 finding topics of discourse as in compressing 
 within the space of an hour what should be said, 
 even to give an outline of his qualities and his 
 career. A complete appreciation of his labors as 
 teacher, as investigator, as expositor, as father of 
 the Institute of Technology, must be left, with 
 all the wealth of illustrative anecdote which his 
 career affords, to the biographer ; and all that can 
 be attempted on this occasion will be to consider 
 the principal excellencies of Professor Rogers's 
 
8 
 
 mind and character, and to interweave the con- 
 sideration of these excellencies with a hasty and 
 imperfect survey of the successive stages of his 
 long and laborious life. 
 
 There is no doubt that he was happily born, 
 that he received various and kindly endowments 
 from benignant Nature. Like Horace, — though, 
 with a modesty which did not grace the Latin 
 poet, he would never have said it of himself, — he 
 was non sine Diis, animosus infans. He was 
 endowed with a clear and penetrating intellect, 
 with a ready and retentive memory, with a sound 
 judgment, — that faculty of common-sense which 
 has been said to be one of the most uncommon 
 of faculties, — with an acute ear, an observant eye, 
 a rich and soaring imagination, a nature of poetic 
 susceptibility, an unselfish, loving, teachable dis- 
 position. The only good gift which Nature 
 seemed to have denied him was the gift of a ro- 
 bust physical constitution ; but, in his striving for 
 the mastery, he was " temperate in all things," 
 and, by a wise, well-ordered life, by the strenuous 
 use of all his faculties, with a vigilant care not to 
 abuse them, he enabled his delicate frame — like 
 the nicely adjusted instruments of weighing, 
 measurement, and observation, which he learned 
 to use with such consummate skill — to co- 
 operate efficiently in doing much good work in 
 the world. 
 
 1 
 
He was born in Ninth Street, Philadelphia, on 
 the seventh day of December, 1804. His father, 
 Patrick Kerr Rogers, was a native of Newton- 
 Stewart, in the North of Ireland, and a student 
 of Trinity College, Dublin. His mother, Hannah 
 Blythe, was a Scotch lady, who, at the time of 
 her marriage, in 1801, was living with her aunt, 
 Mrs. Ramsay, in Philadelphia. There must have 
 been something peculiarly good on both sides in 
 the strain from which he came, for it gave birth 
 to four sons — James Blythe, William Barton, 
 Henry Darwin, and Robert Empie — whose 
 names can never be obliterated from the annals 
 of American science. 
 
 Professor Rogers was early launched, by his 
 own irresistible tendencies and by paternal in- 
 struction and example, on the career which he 
 was destined to follow with such signal useful- 
 ness and distinction. As a great poet has said 
 that he " lisped in numbers for the numbers 
 came," so there seemed to be something of spon- 
 taneity in the consecration of Professor Rogers 
 to the study and the teaching of science. He 
 knew from his earliest years what his life's aim 
 was, and wasted no time or energy by hesitation 
 and uncertainty in making the selection. With 
 such endowments as he possessed, and with such 
 talents as he developed, he might have turned 
 aside, with every hope of success, into the paths 
 
10 
 
 of political ambition, and might well have hoped 
 to secure some of the glittering prizes which are 
 abundantly held out in our country to those who 
 excel in the gift and the art of speech ; but 
 throughout his long career, from the studies of 
 childhood until the sudden closing of his life on 
 the platform of Huntington Hall, he clung to 
 science with unwavering singleness of purpose 
 and undeviating constancy. With this early and 
 persistent singleness of purpose, were naturally 
 associated an untiring industry and an inexhausti- 
 ble patience. Before Longfellow had formulated 
 the precept in his immortal verse, Rogers had 
 learned " to labor and to wait." Whatever his 
 native endowment, he ever acted as if believing 
 with Schiller, — the seemingly spontaneous gush 
 of whose splendid lyric poetry appears to contra- 
 dict the theory, — that industry and genius are 
 convertible terms ; or, in the words of another 
 great author, that " genius is but an infinite 
 capacity for taking pains." 
 
 In 1827, at the age of twenty-three, he deliv- 
 ered a course of lectures on Natural Science 
 before the Maryland Institute, in Baltimore. In 
 1828, at the age of twenty-four, he succeeded his 
 father as Professor of Mathematics and Natural 
 Philosophy in the College of William and Mary; 
 a chair which he continued to fill until 1835, 
 when, at the age of thirty-one, he was called to 
 
II 
 
 the Professorship of Natural Philosophy in this 
 University. Here he remained until 1853, during 
 a period of eighteen years, marked by indefatiga- 
 ble activity on his part, as teacher, State Geolo- 
 gist, contributor to the scientific journals of the 
 country, and first chairman of the association 
 which has since become the National Academy 
 of Sciences. 
 
 Time would fail me to give a detailed account 
 of his labors in this University, and in the field 
 of geology from 1835 to 1842, or to review his 
 published researches as geologist, physicist, and 
 chemist. Suffice it to say that the records of 
 those labors are abundantly spread over the 
 scientific annals of the country, and may easily 
 be found by the interested inquirer ; sufiice it 
 to say that they placed Professor Rogers in the 
 front rank of men of science, not only in the 
 estimation of America, but in the estimation of 
 Europe, — and especially of Germany, where the 
 name of the Gebrilder Rogers, who had been 
 engaged in collaborative work, became widely and 
 favorably known. 
 
 But, distinguished as Professor Rogers was as an 
 original investigator of many and of very various 
 phenomena, — well known as he had become, 
 through the widely published results of his re- 
 searches, for his knowledge and his observations, 
 — there was one of his characteristic excellences 
 
12 
 
 which I shall be pardoned for selecting to com- 
 ment on at some length, as it was the excellence 
 which commanded the widest attention and 
 excited the warmest admiration in this country, 
 and the one which gives him the most lasting 
 hold on the remembrance of all who had the 
 happiness to know and to hear him. 
 
 It has been said, in an often quoted line, that 
 the poet is born and not made ; and one of the 
 greatest orators that the world has known has 
 declared, as an antithesis to this, that the orator 
 is made and not born. It would be truer to 
 aflfirm, of both poet and orator, that each is born 
 and made. 
 
 There is no doubt that Professor Rogers in- 
 herited an aptitude for eloquence. He came of 
 a race which, on many memorable occasions of 
 the world's history, if it has not controlled the 
 action of men, has deeply impressed their minds 
 and stirred their hearts. A blood kindred to the 
 blood of Grattan and Curran and Emmet and 
 Shell flowed in his veins. His physical qualifica- 
 tions for effective speech were, like his intellec- 
 tual and moral qualifications, noteworthy. He 
 had a clear, musical, distinctly audible — though 
 not powerful — voice. He had a slender, erect, 
 lithe, active frame, and a natural sweep of easy 
 and graceful gesture that propitiated the eye 
 as much as his voice propitiated the ear. His 
 
13 
 
 eye beamed with quick intelligence and genial 
 kindliness. 
 
 But these good gifts, these pleasing attributes, 
 would not have commanded such success as he 
 achieved, unless he had superadded to them the 
 results of long-continued, painstaking, conscien- 
 tious practice and labor. This painstaking 
 thoroughness could be seen even in matters of 
 seemingly insignificant detail. In such an act as 
 describing a circumference, or in constructing a 
 complex diagram, his performance was marked by 
 a deft and nimble dexterity, with which he so 
 suited " the action to the word " that in his pres- 
 ence it was difficult even for the eye of habitually 
 inattentive youth to stray, or its ear to be heed- 
 less. As has been said of an eminent French 
 lecturer of a past generation, he made himself 
 heard by causing himself to be listened to. 
 
 To the advantage of voice and eye and person 
 and gesture, he added the advantage of a rich, 
 copious, and accurate vocabulary. " To have 
 good sense, — to know, — " says one of the great 
 poets of antiquity, " is the beginning and the 
 source of good writing ; " and what he says of 
 good writing is equally true of good speaking. 
 The knowledge of his subject, on the part of 
 Professor Rogers, was wide and thorough. He 
 owed much to his scientific — especially to his 
 mathematical — training. That invaluable dis- 
 
14 
 
 cipline enabled him to follow steadily, swiftly, 
 surely the thread of his discourse, without danger 
 of breaking its continuity or of deviating from the 
 straight path which was swept by his mind's eye. 
 
 The fervid glow of his imagination, the rich 
 variety of his diction, the swift fluency of his 
 delivery, led incompetent judges sometimes to 
 impute to him the mere merit of the rhetorician ; 
 while, in fact, he was exemplifying that " true 
 eloquence " which one of the greatest masters of 
 eloquence in our tongue has found to be " none 
 but the serious and hearty love of truth : and 
 that whose mind soever is fully possessed with 
 a fervent desire to know good things, and with 
 the dearest charity to infuse the knowledge of 
 them into others, — when such a man would 
 speak, his words, like so many nimble and airy 
 servitors, trip about him at command, and in well- 
 ordered files, as he would wish, fall aptly into 
 their own places/' 
 
 To a critic who should be disposed to see in 
 Professor Rogers nothing but the rhetorician, I 
 would recommend the mastery of his treatise on 
 " The Strength of Materials," or of his " Ele- 
 ments of Mechanical Philosophy," which an emi- 
 nently competent authority has declared to be 
 far superior to any other work on the subject he 
 had ever seen, " in the lucid explanations which 
 are given, and the distinctness with which the 
 
15 
 
 leading principles of the science are enunciated." 
 To such a critic I would quote the testimony of 
 Professor Francis H. Smith, who, in an admirable 
 letter, recalls "the enthusiasm with which Pro- 
 fessor Courtenay — himself one of the most 
 thorough teachers of the day — spoke of Pro- 
 fessor Rogers's treatment of the doctrine of cen- 
 tral forces as a masterpiece of simple yet adequate 
 exposition." I would point also to " the glowing 
 tribute " by Professor Bache — referred to in the 
 same letter — to a lecture of Professor Rogers, as 
 " the most perfect specimen of scientific analysis 
 he had ever listened to." 
 
 The oratory of Professor Rogers was ever, as 
 I have said, the outcome of wide, thorough, 
 exact scientific knowledge ; but there is no ques- 
 tion that his reason and his knowledge were often 
 informed with the glow of poetry and passion, 
 and that to this glow his marvellous success as a 
 speaker owed a legitimate share of its triumph. 
 One of these triumphs was so marked and pecu- 
 liar in itself, as well as in its attending circum- 
 stances, that, at the risk of a slight digression, I 
 cannot forbear making reference to it. I am 
 informed by Professor Mallet, — who, to the irrep- 
 arable loss of this University and this Common- 
 wealth, is about to transfer his invaluable services 
 to a distant field of usefulness and distinction, 
 — that he was present, when a youth, at a public 
 
i6 
 
 dinner given in England, in the year 1849, by 
 the Mayor and Corporation of Birmingham, to 
 the British Association for the Advancement of 
 Science, at which Faraday, Lord Rosse, Sir 
 Roderick Murchison, Professor Edward Forbes, 
 Von Schrotter of Vienna, Drouyn de I'Huys, the 
 French Ambassador, the Rev. Dr. Romney Rob- 
 inson, President of the Association for the year, 
 and other prominent men, were guests. 
 
 Professor Rogers was called upon to speak ; 
 and I cannot better state than in Professor Mal- 
 let's own words the impression he made on what 
 may fairly be considered to be the incarnation of 
 sober sense and of accurate critical judgment, — 
 a British scientific assembl}^ " Although I was 
 but a boy at the time," says Professor Mallet, 
 " attending the meeting with my father, I recol- 
 lect most distinctly the marked impression made 
 upon the large assembly by Professor Rogers's 
 speech, and the enthusiasm it kindled. It came 
 late in the evening, after much — perhaps most — 
 of the matter appropriate to the occasion had 
 been already utilized by others ; yet it was clearly 
 the success of the banquet. Americans were less 
 known in England than they have since become, 
 and the slight foreign flavor which accompanied 
 a speech excellent in itself, and fluently delivered 
 in the mother tongue, added to the piquancy and 
 effect." 
 
17 
 
 Professor Rogers, in his style as a speaker, 
 seemed ever to bear in mind and heart 'the sound 
 architectural canon of the permissibility of orna- 
 mented construction, but not of constructed orna- 
 mentation. I find the theory on which he based 
 his method of speech excellently outlined by 
 himself in a few passages in which he eloquently 
 pleads in behalf of " the ennobling influences 
 which attend the contemplation of all great 
 works of art." " Most of what is true and beau- 
 tiful," he affirms, " in painting, sculpture, or 
 architecture, is but the material expression of 
 truth previously latent in the soul, and must, 
 therefore, awaken in the observer sentiments akin 
 to those from which the artist drew his inspira- 
 tion." He contends that " the cultivation of the 
 fine arts must be regarded as a necessary supple- 
 ment in every wise system of education to the 
 teachings of practical science and the more 
 purely logical exercises of thought ; " and he 
 proceeds to say, with his characteristic felicity of 
 illustration, that, " if they may be represented by 
 the wreath of stone that crowns the Corinthian 
 shaft with leafy beauty, while adding nothing to 
 its supporting power, they are still more truly 
 symbolized by the towering arches and swelling 
 domes, whose very grace and grandeur are condi- 
 tions inseparable from their strength." 
 
 Entertaining these views, it was impossible for 
 
 3 
 
i8 
 
 Professor Rogers, with such powers of under- 
 standing and imagination as he possessed, not to 
 adorn whatever he touched. It is not strange if, 
 in speaking of the heavenly bodies, while abating 
 nothing from the rigor of mathematical demon- 
 stration, that their splendor was sometimes re- 
 flected in ^is discourse, and if the mystic music 
 of the spheres was sometimes made to echo in 
 the ears of his hearers as it echoed in his own 
 soul. It is no wonder if, in lecturing on the 
 geography and geology of your Western Moun- 
 tains, his language often unconsciously borrowed 
 something from the scenes on which he had 
 lately gazed with delight. It is no wonder if, 
 in speaking of the natural features of Virginia, 
 his enthusiasm and poetic rapture were enkindled 
 by the remembered impression of the azure out- 
 line which bounds your lovely landscape. His 
 style was vital with the breezes of the crest of the 
 Blue Ridge and of the Alleghanies ; it was clear 
 with the purity and swift with the rush of the 
 mountain stream ; it was rich with the teeming 
 fertility of the fruitful valley ; and it sometimes 
 blazed with the autumnal glories of the maple 
 and the Virginia-creeper. 
 
 In the year 1853 Professor Rogers was forty- 
 nine years of age. He was then fully developed, 
 — equipped with wide, various, and thorough 
 scientific knowledge, with unequalled power as 
 
19 
 
 an oral expositor of science, with a great reputa- 
 tion in his own country, and an extending repu- 
 tation in Europe. If, at this time, Virginia owed 
 much to him, he, in return, owed much to Vir- 
 ginia. It has been said, with more wit than 
 truth, that Virginia is a good State to be born in, 
 provided one leaves it early enough. Professor 
 Rogers's career illustrates the converse of this 
 clever aphorism. He was not indeed born in 
 Virginia, but he came to Virginia so early and 
 stayed so long as to be thoroughly imbued with 
 her influences. He caught something of the 
 creative energy of Thomas Jefferson, by an early 
 contact with that all-embracing and untiring 
 philosopher and constructor, one of whose high- 
 est claims to the gratitude of posterity — out- 
 ranking, in his own estimation, many of his other 
 eminent public services — will ever be that he was 
 Father of the University of Virginia. He had 
 enjoyed also the opportunity of listening to the 
 experienced wisdom and the delightful conversa- 
 tional humor of James Madison, once the Rector 
 of. the University. For seven years he had 
 taught the youth of William and Mary, and for 
 eighteen years the youth of this University; and 
 during this quarter of a century he had largely 
 expanded his own powers by the ever congenial 
 occupation — as he told us eight years ago from 
 this very platform — of educating the young men 
 
20 
 
 of Virginia and of the South. He owed much 
 of the growth of his faculties to his long and 
 intimate intercourse, while here, with such col- 
 leagues as Emmet and Bonnycastle and Davis, 
 the two Tuckers and Harrison and Courtenay 
 and Cabell ; and he drew not a little of the charm 
 of his easy and cordial and unaffected manners 
 from his familiarity with all classes of the warm- 
 hearted people of Virginia. In a word, he was 
 largely a Virginian product ; and, like some other 
 of the productions of Virginia, one of those 
 products of which the mother had no need to be 
 ashamed. 
 
 But the time had now come when the sphere 
 of his usefulness was to be widely changed. On 
 the twentieth day of June, 1849, he had married 
 Miss Emma Savage, of Boston, — daughter of 
 the author of the New England Genealogical 
 Dictionary and President of the Massachusetts 
 Historical Society. This connection proved to 
 be the crowning blessing of his life. Mrs. 
 Rogers, by her energy, her intelligence, her cheer- 
 ful equanimity, her unfailing sympathy, became 
 to him what Lady Lyell had been to Sir Charles 
 Lyell, — another eminent man, engaged in kin- 
 dred pursuits, — the promoter of his labors, the 
 ornament and solace of his middle life, and the 
 devoted companion and supporter of his declining 
 years. One of the results, however, of the mar- 
 
 tfH 
 
21 
 
 riage was that it led, in 1853, to the transfer of 
 Professor Rogers's residence to Boston, — that 
 fairest of American cities, which sends the influ- 
 ence of her high civiUzation throughout the 
 land. 
 
 Professor Rogers was at once warmly welcomed 
 in the best circles of a city which does not lightly 
 accord its favors and its confidence. He owed 
 this less even to his connection, excellent as 
 that was, than to his own sterling merit. He 
 was a man who, in any cultured community, 
 could not fail at once to attract and retain regard. 
 His knowledge, his power of communicating his 
 knowledge, his amiable disposition, his manners, 
 made him a great social favorite in Boston, and 
 he became one of the earliest and most appre- 
 ciated members of a select club, known as the 
 Friday Club. Among the members of that 
 club, besides himself, were such men as the thor- 
 oughly informed and sparkling Amory, the cul- 
 tured Hillard, the learned Ticknor, the scholarly 
 Felton, the logical and profound Curtis, the 
 genial, enthusiastic, world-renowned Agassiz. 
 
 He enlarged his experience, also, by visiting 
 Europe on five different occasions. Sailing, for 
 the first time, on the day of his marriage, the 
 twentieth of June, 1849, he returned in October 
 of the same year. His travels with Mrs. Rogers 
 were limited, at that time, to England and Scot- 
 
22 
 
 land, with a short stay in Paris, and a few weeks 
 in Switzerland. There were but few travellers 
 from England or America during that season, 
 as they were deterred by the disturbed state of 
 Germany after the Revolution of 1848, and there 
 were then no railways in Switzerland. The 
 pleasure to Professor Rogers, — freed from the 
 restraint of exacting duties, — of going quietly 
 and slowly whithersoever inclination led, was very 
 great. In England he had delightful intercourse 
 with scientific men, most of whom he had pre- 
 viously known only through their works. Lyell 
 and Daubeny he had known in America, and 
 the latter had been his guest at this University. 
 During this visit he took part in the proceedings 
 of the British Association for the Advancement 
 of Science, attended the banquet to which I 
 have already referred, and was welcomed and 
 entertained with the greatest kindness and appre- 
 ciation by such men as Lyell, Buckland, — then 
 Dean of Westminster, — Sedgwick, Mantell, 
 Gasiot, Wheatland, and Brewster. 
 
 In 1857 he attended the meeting of the Asso- 
 ciation, at Dublin; and in 1864, accompanied by 
 Mrs. Rogers, he went to Europe in order to col- 
 lect apparatus for the Physical Laboratory, and 
 models of machinery, for the Institute of Tech- 
 nology. He profited by this visit to carefully 
 study the schools for industrial arts at Paris 
 
23 
 
 and Carlsruhe, and to attend the meeting of 
 the British Association at Bath. In 1866 he 
 made a voyage on account of the ilhiess of his 
 distinguished brother, Henry Darwin Rogers, 
 who had been his early colaborer in important 
 scientific work, and who then occupied the chair 
 of Natural Science in the University of Glas- 
 gow. He did not, however, reach Scotland 
 until after his brother's death, and he returned 
 in a few weeks. 
 
 His last voyage to Europe was at the time of 
 the Paris Exhibition of 1867, when he represented 
 the State of Massachusetts as Commissioner, and 
 passed the summer in almost daily visits to the 
 Exhibition. 
 
 We can easily fancy, with his knowledge and 
 his tastes, what high satisfaction he must have felt 
 in the society of eminent men of science abroad, 
 and with what keen appreciation he must have 
 examined the schools, the museums, the art-gal- 
 leries, the exhibitions of Europe, — with what 
 interest and delight he must have looked on the 
 sublime natural features of Switzerland. If he had 
 been an ordinary man, the temptation might have 
 proved irresistible to linger long and idly, instead 
 of studying the Old World, — "rich with the spoils 
 of time," — for the benefit of his own country. 
 He might well, except for his high purposes, have 
 passed away the years as others often do — loiter- 
 
24 
 
 ing in the Garden of the Tuileries or in the 
 Champs Elysees, or basking in the sunshine of 
 the Riviera; or even at home, he might have 
 become an intellectual sybarite — spending his 
 time in the alcoves of the Athenaeum and in such 
 society as I have mentioned. But the seductive 
 charms of Europe and the delights of congenial 
 society at home were alike powerless to render 
 his life unfruitful. With him work, unceasing 
 work, and work to a definite, useful, practical end, 
 was an imperious necessity of his intellectual and 
 moral being. He preferred 
 
 "To scorn delights and live laborious days." 
 
 He withdrew from the Friday Club, not be- 
 cause intercourse with its members was not 
 a source of the highest enjoyment to him, but 
 because he was unwilling to spare the time 
 from teaching, and from the work of founding 
 and developing the Institute of Technology, on 
 which he was now beginning to concentrate his 
 faculties. 
 
 It is impossible on this occasion to review the 
 purely scientific labors of Professor Rogers after 
 his removal to Boston, and it is unnecessary to 
 attempt a task which has already been excellently 
 well performed by Professor Cross, in an address 
 to the Society of Arts, of the Massachusetts 
 Institute of Technology. Nor will I pause to 
 
25 
 
 take adequate notice of Professor Rogers's Presi- 
 dency of the National Academy of Sciences, — his 
 fit and crowning distinction as the Nestor of 
 American science, — or to dwell on the graces of 
 his private life, whether in the exercise of his cor- 
 dial and unostentatious hospitality at his home in 
 Marlborough Street, or in his embowered cottage 
 by the sea, at Newport, Rhode Island, where a 
 now silent poet^ has beautifully and touchingly 
 commemorated his genius and his virtues. 
 
 I pass on to the great work of the end of his 
 life, the foundation and development of the In- 
 stitute of Technology. 
 
 This topic has been treated by his colaborer 
 and associate with exhaustive knowledge and 
 sympathetic appreciation. The six documents 
 referred to by Professor Runkle in his address to 
 the Society of Arts, as well as the catalogue 
 of the Institute of Technology, — now in the 
 eighteenth year of its existence, — bear abundant 
 witness to the wide and far-reaching views of 
 Professor Rogers in founding an institution which 
 should provide for the youth of the country " an 
 education based on the modern languages, with 
 the mathematical, physical, and natural sciences in 
 their relation to the industrial wants and progress 
 of the country." A careful perusal of these docu- 
 
 1 See a note at the end of this Address for an explanation of 
 this allusion. 
 
26 
 
 ments, in their relation to the scheme of instruc- 
 tion and the provisions for discipline, will show 
 the large influence which the methods of this 
 University exercised on the mind of Professor 
 Rogers in his formative plans for the newer 
 Institution. 
 
 In the scope and plan of the Institute of Tech- 
 nology, we shall recognize the same master-hand 
 which, in answer to a resolve of the Legislature 
 of Virginia, of the twenty-second day of Decem- 
 ber, 1844, drew the Report — instinct with wis- 
 dom and with eloquence, and containing passages 
 worthy of being emblazoned in letters of light on 
 your walls — against the expediency of withdraw- 
 ing the annuity from this University. We shall 
 see the prevalence of the same method of influen- 
 cing the conduct of the students which exists 
 here, — a method reducing to a minimum the fet- 
 ters of necessary restraint, — not based on the 
 idea of original sin and inborn perverseness, but 
 on the wisdom of encouraging to the utmost, 
 wherever it exists, the desire to excel. We shall 
 recognize the same great mind which eloquently 
 pleads in the Report referred to for a liberal dis- 
 cretion in " the Election of Studies," and for " In- 
 struction by Lectures," instead of by the exclusive 
 use of text-books, as more vitalizing to the faculties 
 of both teacher and student. Finally, we shall feel 
 the beating of the same large heart, with its aspi- 
 
27 
 
 rations for giving the widest beneficence to the 
 Institution, and making its influence and renown 
 commensurate with the wants of the age, and the 
 greatness and resources of the country. 
 
 While the arduous, persevering, and finally 
 successful labors of Professor Rogers in connec- 
 tion with the Institute of Technology, — his com- 
 plete triumph over the early repulse and ridicule 
 to which he referred in the last address of his 
 life, — have been elsewhere sufficiently set forth, 
 it happens to be in my power to throw some light 
 on the unselfishness and generosity which marked 
 his labors. 
 
 An honored friend and connection, writing to 
 me from Boston, speaks of Professor Rogers's ser- 
 vices as President of the Institute of Technology, 
 and as one of its leading instructors, as " exceed- 
 ing description in fidelity, generosity, and skill." 
 He is informed by a trustworthy authority that as 
 the Institute, a large part of the time, had been 
 limited in its resources. Professor Rogers had 
 largely supplied the wants of its Laboratory and 
 its other scientific departments from his own 
 purse, and in all that time had refused for his 
 own services any compensation. Kindling with 
 enthusiasm he exclaims : " When you take into 
 account the value of those services and the lim- 
 ited means of the benefactor, is not this grand 
 and glorious ! " 
 
28 
 
 On the thirtieth day of May, 1882, a little 
 more than a year ago, Professor Rogers, then in 
 the seventy-eighth year of his age, — feeble, ema- 
 ciated, wan, but his face illumined with the 
 rewarding consciousness of duty nobly performed 
 and of high effort crowned by merited success, — 
 appeared for the last time on the platform of 
 Huntington Hall in the institution which he had 
 founded and nurtured. His presence was enthu- 
 siastically welcomed by a large assembly, attracted 
 by the ever interesting scene of the launching of 
 youth into the stream of active and useful life, 
 and by the great reputation of him who was to 
 award the hardly won diploma to successful effort. 
 He was presented to his audience by his succes- 
 sor, President Francis A. Walker, in singularly 
 graceful and touching words. 
 
 He returned his thanks with more than usually 
 deep feeling, and proceeded, with characteristic 
 wisdom, to comment on the distinction which has 
 often been made between theory and practice. 
 " Formerly," he declared, " a wide separation ex- 
 isted between theory and practice ; now, in every 
 fabric that is made, in every structure that is 
 reared, they are closely united into one interlock- 
 ing system ; the practical is based upon the scien- 
 tific, and the scientific is solidly built upon the 
 practical. You have not been treated here to-day 
 to anything in the nature of oratorical display, — 
 
■i 
 
 29 
 
 no decorations, no flowers, no music, — but you 
 have seen in what careful and painstaking manner 
 these young men and women have been prepared 
 for their future occupations in Hfe." 
 
 Continuing in this strain, and drawing from his 
 full and inexhaustible mind one of his happy 
 illustrations, he suddenly paused and — to the 
 consternation of his audience — sank to the floor. 
 Devoted friends and pupils rushed to his assist- 
 ance, but he was speedily beyond the reach of 
 human aid. To him those solemn words of the 
 Preacher were now receiving their ever recurring 
 and oft repeated application : " or ever the silver 
 cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or 
 the pitcher broken at the fountain, or the wheel 
 broken at the cistern, — then shall the dust return 
 to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return 
 to God who gave it." 
 
 Never in that hall and never in these halls 
 were the accents of that tongue to be heard again ; 
 and it may well be doubted if either there or here 
 a voice shall ever again be listened to which can 
 better inform the understanding with the princi- 
 ples of science, and at the same time better warm 
 the heart with the love of all generous learning, 
 than the voice of William Barton Rogers. Let 
 us reverently hope and believe that, with the clos- 
 ing of that final day of earthly existence, those 
 highly disciplined and splendid faculties — which 
 
30 
 
 had so long and strenuously been exercised in 
 scrutinizing the mysteries of the Universe, and in 
 promoting the welfare of man — found a higher 
 fruition than they had ever known before, in the 
 beatific visions of a better world and in the in- 
 effable joys of the Divine Presence. 
 
Note. — The "now silent poet," alluded to on page 25 of the preceding 
 Address, is the Rev. Charles T. Brooks, of Newport, Rhode Island. He died at 
 Newport on the 14th day of June, 1883, leaving a name which, as Scholar and 
 Poet, will find an enduring place in the best literature of his country. 
 
 His pure and gentle spirit seems to me to breathe with so much grace and 
 feeling in the verses which he wrote a fortnight after the death of Professor 
 Rogers, in commemoration of that event, that I have thought it well to reproduce 
 them here. 
 
 W. C. R. 
 
 En JWemoriam. 
 
 WILLIAM BARTON ROGERS. 
 
 Brooklets and birds, in mingling tune, 
 New life o'er all the landscape pour ; 
 Again the balmy breath of June 
 Invites to roam our tranquil shore. 
 
 Old Ocean spreads a level floor, 
 The heavens serenely bend above ; 
 Nature's full choir intones once more 
 The praise of all-embracing love. 
 
 And yet a veil of sadness lies 
 O'er all this lovely region spread ; 
 A charm has vanished from our eyes ; 
 From the sweet scene a grace has fled ! 
 
 We feel that from our earthly day 
 A beam of sunny light is gone — 
 A kindling and a cheering ray 
 Of friendship, from our life withdrawn. 
 
32 
 
 But, blessed faith ! while earth is thus 
 Poorer and lonelier than before, 
 Heaven is still richer, and for us 
 Has now one charm and promise more. 
 
 O sainted friend ! farewell and hail ! 
 Removed from sight, yet not afar ; 
 Still through this earthly twilight-veil 
 Thou beamest down, a friendly star ! 
 
 The Prophet's blessing comes to thee ; 
 The crown he holds to view is thine ; 
 Forever more thy memory 
 . In Heaven and in our hearts shall shine. - 
 
 Poet and Orator wast thou 
 Of Science ! Nature's glowing face 
 Illumed thy eyes ; her radiant brow 
 Lent thine a glory and a grace. 
 
 The silvery music of thy speech, 
 A crystal river flowed along ; 
 What labored lore could never teach, 
 Was breathed as from a lyric song. 
 
 A cloud hath snatched thee from our sight ; 
 Thy voice is hushed to mortal ears ; 
 Thou listenest in the heavenly height 
 The longed-for music of the spheres. 
 
 C. T. B. 
 
 Newport, June i6, 1882. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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