The Kenwood Observatory is not, I
believe, in the eye of the public, one of the noteworthy institutions
of your city which every visitor is taken to see, and yet this
invention has given it an important place in the science of our day.

Should you ask me what are the most hopeful features in the great
establishment which you are now dedicating, I would say that they are
not alone to be found in the size of your unequalled telescope, nor in
the cost of the outfit, but in the fact that your authorities have
shown their appreciation of the requirements of success by adding to
the material outfit of the establishment the three men whose works I
have described.

Gentlemen of the trustees, allow me to commend to your fostering care
the men at the end of the telescope. The constitution of the astronomer
shows curious and interesting features. If he is destined to advance
the science by works of real genius, he must, like the poet, be born,
not made. The born astronomer, when placed in command of a telescope,
goes about using it as naturally and effectively as the babe avails
itself of its mother's breast. He sees intuitively what less gifted men
have to learn by long study and tedious experiment. He is moved to
celestial knowledge by a passion which dominates his nature. He can no
more avoid doing astronomical work, whether in the line of observations
or research, than a poet can chain his Pegasus to earth. I do not mean
by this that education and training will be of no use to him. They will
certainly accelerate his early progress. If he is to become great on
the mathematical side, not only must his genius have a bend in that
direction, but he must have the means of pursuing his studies. And yet
I have seen so many failures of men who had the best instruction, and
so many successes of men who scarcely learned anything of their
teachers, that I sometimes ask whether the great American celestial
mechanician of the twentieth century will be a graduate of a university
or of the backwoods.

Is the man thus moved to the exploration of nature by an unconquerable
passion more to be envied or pitied? In no other pursuit does success
come with such certainty to him who deserves it. No life is so
enjoyable as that whose energies are devoted to following out the
inborn impulses of one's nature. The investigator of truth is little
subject to the disappointments which await the ambitious man in other
fields of activity. It is pleasant to