"We honor him because he has ennobled our race, because he has contributed as much as any man, living or dead, to the real prosperity of the world. We honor him because he has honored us--because he has labored for others--because he was the most learned man of the most learned nation of his time--because he left a legacy of glory to every human being. For these reasons he is honored throughout the world. "Millions are doing homage to his genius at this moment, and millions are pronouncing his name with reverence and recounting what he accomplished. "We associate the name of Humboldt with oceans, continents, mountains, volcanoes--with towering palms--the snow-lipped craters of the Andes--the wide deserts--with primeval forests and European capitals--with wilderness and universities--with savages and savants--with the lonely rivers of unpeopled wastes--with peaks, pampas, steppes, cliffs and crags--with the progress of the world--with every science known to man and with every star glittering in the immensity of space. Humboldt adopted none of the soul-shrinking creeds of his day; he wasted none of his time in the inanities, stupidities and contradictions of theological metaphysics; he did not endeavor to harmonize the astronomy and geology of a barbarous people with the science of the Nineteenth Century. "Never, for one moment, did he abandon the sublime standard of truth: he investigated, he studied, he thought, he separated the gold from the dross in the crucible of his brain. He was never found on his knees before the altar of superstition. He stood erect by the tranquil column of Reason. He was an admirer, a lover, an adorer of Nature, and at the age of ninety, bowed by the weight of nearly a century, covered with the insignia of honor, loved by a nation, respected by a world, with kings for his servants, he laid his weary head upon her bosom--upon the bosom of the Universal Mother--and with her loving arms about him, sank into that slumber which we call Death. "History added another name to the starry scroll of the immortals. "The world is his monument; upon the eternal granite of her hills he inscribed his name, and there, upon everlasting stone, his genius wrote this, the sublimest of truths: The universe is governed by law." [Illustration: WILLIAM HERSCHEL] WILLIAM HERSCHEL