I University of Chicago PRIZE the privilege of delivering the first of a series of lectures which will commemorate the work and character of Henry Calvert Simons. My pleasure is not in the least diminished by the conviction that he would have protested at the suggestion of such a lecture series--perhaps likening them to the rigid, weathered structures erected to military heroes, with the lecturers sometimes bearing a sufficient resemblance to the nervous, edible birds which hover about them.