Joseph Henry And The Magnetic Telegraph

JOSEPH HENRY AnD THE MAGNETIC TELEGRAPH. . AN ADDRESS DEllVERED AT PRINCETON COLLEGE, JUNI 16, 1885 BY EDWARD N. DICKERSON, LL.D. S1 MONUMENTUhf QUARIS CIRCUJISPICE. NEW YORK UIIART, ES SCRIBNERS SONS - 18S5 COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY, PRINCETON, N. J., June 19, 1885. MY DEAR SIR Immediately after the delivery of your paper on the discoveries of Dr. Joseph Henry, I ex- pressed my strong personal desire to see it pub- lished. I find that the College is at one with me in this wish. We should like to have so comprehensive a paper circulated in our day, and handed down to posterity. I am yours ever, JAMES McCOSH. NLEw YORK, June 22d, 1885.--- I take pleasure in furnishing to Princeton Col - lege my address presenting the memorial tablet of Professor Henry. I have added to it an appendix of notes supporting the statements contained in it, which I trust will prove satisfactory. It is a labor of love for me to do anything tending to present our great and beloved friend to his omn age, and to posterity, in his true propor- tions. His achievements seemed to him so easy to perform, that he never looked upon them as exhibiting any great power and he therefore involuntarily shrank from that praise to which he was so eminently entitled, and from conspic- uously exhibiting bis results before the world. He preferred to defer to the judgment of posterity, and to submit his reputation to the ordeal of time, which, like a simple acid, eats away the baser metal, and leaves the pure gold free from its asso- ciation. With many thanks to you for the compliment implied in your request, I am, sir, very truly, Your obedient servant, EDW. N. DICKERSON. President McCos, Princeton College. MEMORIAL ADDRESS EDWARD N.DICKERSON, LL.D., PRESENTING TO PBINCETON COLLEGE A TABLET DESIGNED TO COMMEMORBTE THE CONTBIBUTXONS TO THE ELEOTBIO TELEOBhPH OF JOSEPH HENRY. The pleasing but sad duty has been assigned to me of presenting to you this memorial tablet of the beloved master, who once shed the lustre of his genius over this ancient seat of learning, and once attracted to its classic shades, allured by his great reputation, pilgrims from all lands, to drink from the living font of knowledge, ever replenished and refreshed by his ceaseless contributions. I commit this monument to your tender care. May it ever remain enshrined in this beautiful temple. May its presence encourage those, and the successors of those, to whom he delivered his torch of science, ablaze with a light which had 6 PROFESSOR HENRY AND THE penetrated to the farthest ends of the earth, to tend that sacred flame so that when they shall transmit it to their successors, it shall still be borne high aloft in the upper atmosphere of pure truth, with still increasing lustre-a guiding beacon to the wayfarer, wandering and astray in the gloomy valleys of ignorance-those deep defiles, where the shadows seem ever darkening by contrast with the brightening mountain tops illumined by the rising sun of knowledge. May it inspire the ingenuous youth, who in the thronging years of the future shall gather about these altars, to search the character and achieve- ments of the great master that they may be taught by him how to study how to think how to work how to live and how to die. May it continue to remind those who annually are attracted here to witness the evidences of the growth of knowledge, as they are exhibited in the commencement seasons, thatonce this college was honored by the ministrations of Joseph Henry, an American, who, wilh means created almost wholly by himself, rivalled the achievements of the greatest scientists of the old world, working with the resources of nobly-endowed institutions, and encouraged by the bounty of Kings and for years was ever a leader in the vigorous attack upon the arcana of nature, made by the champions of science in the early years of this century. I MAGNETIC TELEGRAPH...