The
fact that beyond the acceptance of a graceful compliment I
contributed nothing to these conferences relieves me from the
charge of bias or self-assertion in saying that they gave me a new
and most inspiring view of the energy now being expended in
research by the younger generation of astronomers. All the
experience of the past leads us to believe that this energy will
reap the reward which nature always bestows upon those who seek
her acquaintance from unselfish motives. In one way it might
appear that little was to be learned from a meeting like that of
the present week. Each astronomer may know by publications
pertaining to the science what all the others are doing. But
knowledge obtained in this way has a sort of abstractness about it
a little like our knowledge of the progress of civilization in
Japan, or of the great extent of the Australian continent. It was,
therefore, a most happy thought on the part of your authorities to
bring together the largest possible number of visiting astronomers
from Europe, as well as America, in order that each might see,
through the attrition of personal contact, what progress the
others were making in their researches. To the visitors at least I
am sure that the result of this meeting has been extremely
gratifying.
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