Dr Oort and Members of the International Astronomical Union:

On behalf of the President and the Regents of the University of California, I welcome you most cordially to our Berkeley campus. We are very pleased that you have elected to hold your second meeting in the United States after an interval of twenty-nine years. Your selection of this once remote site on the far western side of the North American continent is truly a gracious recognition on your part of the value of the contributions that the staff of the University of California has made to the advancement of astronomy and the sciences on which it depends to such an increasing degree.

The University of California is a relatively young institution. Less than a century ago, this plaza, in which we are gathered this morning, was an open field—a sunny spot on the long, grassy slope from the hills to the bay which was then unbroken except for scattered clusters of oaks and a few low buildings at the distant landing.