work in the School of Mines, and bears now the title of Professor
Emeritus; his health has been a good deal impaired, and his work has
passed largely into the charge of younger men who have grown up under
his direction as students and assistants. During the last winter he
has presented to the school his entire scientific library and his
private collection of minerals above referred to, some six thousand
specimens. These, in addition to the great mineralogical treasures
already possessed by the institution, all gathered and arranged under
his supervision, will make the School of Mines collection certainly
one of the finest in the country.
Although devoted to his own special branches, Professor Egleston had
given a striking example of broad interest in other departments of
science in his labor of love in connection with the monument to the
memory of the great ornithologist Audubon. The present writer was
closely associated with him in this work, and can testify to his
energy, enthusiasm, and perseverance therein. The later years of
Audubon's life had been spent on Manhattan Island, in a modest but
beautiful suburban home on the Hudson, above Harlem, known as Audubon
Park. He died in 1851, and was buried in a family vault in Trinity
Cemetery, then far out of town, now lying between One hundred and
Fifty-third and One Hundred and Fifty-fifth Streets, Amsterdam Avenue,
and the Hudson. The spot was remote and almost unknown, and with the
death and removal of most of the family, it had fallen into neglect.
When One Hundred and Fifty-third Street was to be opened through to
the river, the vault, which was close to the street line, was in
danger of injury; and then Professor Egleston took up the matter and
proposed to the trustees of the cemetery that if they would grant
another plot in a better location, he would endeavor to have a
handsome monument erected by national subscription. The trustees
responded warmly, and Professor Egleston undertook the work. Before
going abroad in 1887 he broached the subject to the writer, and
suggested that he present it during the meeting of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science, which was to be held
during that summer in New York. The writer gladly responded to the
plan, and in August of that year laid the facts before a general
meeting of the association. Much interest was expressed, but no action
was taken, as had been hoped. At the first regular meeting of the New
York Academy of Sciences, in October, the writer again presented the
subject, with better result; and a committee was appointed by the
academy, consisting of Professor Egleston as chairman, Dr. N. L.
Britton, and the writer. On the return of the former from Europe the
work was taken up in earnest; and under the indefatigable efforts of
the chairman and of the secretary, Dr. Britton, although with many
delays and discouragements, it was carried to a triumphant success.
Before the end of the year (1887) the committee had held numerous
meetings, prepared and issued a circular, and engaged the co-operation
of several other organizations with the Academy of Sciences, including
the American Ornithologists' Union, the Agassiz Association, and the
Audubon Society (for the protection of our native birds). A design was
proposed by the academy's committee, and adopted by the joint
committee of the several societies; this design originated with
Professor Egleston, and was a striking combination of the religious,
scientific, and artistic elements appropriate to the purpose. The
scheme was that of a Runic cross, the only form of that Christian
symbol which can properly bear ornamental devices, according to the
canons of artists and architects, and this was to be covered with
reliefs of the birds, quadrupeds, and flowers that Audubon so loved
and studied, and that have given him his fame as the artist-naturalist
of America. The general design being approved, the selection and
arrangement of the animals and birds was given to a subcommittee of
specialists, consisting of Dr. J. A. Allen, Mr. G. B. Sennett, and Dr.
N. L. Britton, whose duty was to secure accurate representation and
artistic grouping of the forms.
In all these combined aspects this monument is doubtless unique. As it
stands to-day over the grave of him whom it commemorates--graceful,
dignified, and altogether peculiar--it is an honor to our city, as
well as a fitting tribute to the memory of Audubon, the Nature-lover,
the artist, and the Christian believer. For this beautiful thought, so
nobly carried out, both American science and the city of New York are
indebted to Thomas Egleston.
The progress of the effort was slow; it was not until 1891 that
sufficient subscriptions were secured, and not until the spring of
1893 that all was ready for the formal ceremonies. During all this
time Professor Egleston and Dr. Britton were untiring in their
endeavors and unfaltering in their purpose to succeed. On April 26,
1893, the monument was dedicated with suitable exercises, of great
interest, at Trinity Cemetery, and a memorial address upon the life
and work of Audubon was delivered by Mr. Daniel G. Elliott, F. R. S.
E., of the Ornithologists' Union, at a public meeting at the American
Museum of Natural History.
Professor Egleston has also laid the citizens of New York under
enduring obligation to him in another and even more important matter,
the preservation of one of the most valuable of our smaller parks from
the clutches of the speculator and spoiler. It is known to but few of
the residents of the city that a series of determined attempts was
made, some years ago, to destroy and obliterate Washington Square, in
the same way in which the St. John's Park outrage was perpetrated ten
years before. The method pursued in that case was by interested
parties buying up property around the park and "colonizing" the houses
with tenants who would either favor or consent to the vandal
obliteration of that beautiful spot of rest and shade for the erection
thereon of the Hudson River Railroad freight depot. St. John's Park,
however, was the property partly of a corporation, partly of
individuals, and the job was comparatively easy. Washington Square
belonged to the city; but the same process was begun by a great
real-estate magnate, and was going on toward a similar result, when
the death of the arch-conspirator checked the scheme for a time. A
little later, however, it was revived, under the notorious Tweed
_régime_, and would have succeeded but for the keen insight and
vigorous action of a few public-spirited citizens, led by Professor
Egleston. Washington Square had been dug over and torn up, under the
pretext of remodeling and "improvement," and the unsightly mounds and
piles of earth were left for many months, not only to offend the eye,
but to generate malaria. The ground had been originally a Potter's
Field, and the opening and upturning of the soil, frequently unhealthy
in its effect, was markedly so in that case. The south side of the
square had been "worked" already, in the first attempt, and had
largely lost its population of old residents; but the north side was
still occupied by a select class of old New-Yorkers. Now, however,
between the desolate aspect of the park and the malaria that began to
be felt, an exodus of the owners on the north side was imminent. Then
began to be hinted some schemes for which all this was preparatory. A
great militia armory was to be erected on the western end, and other
projects vaguely loomed up, involving the ruin of the park as such. A
bill to legalize these schemes was quietly introduced at Albany, and
had been brought nearly to its passage, by "influences" no less potent
for their careful concealment. Professor Egleston and a few other
gentlemen of the vicinity were anxious about these rumors, but could
get no information. Inquiries from city officials were met with
positive denial of any such intentions, and it was only within a few
days of the time set for the passage of the bill that they succeeded
in discovering its real meaning.
At this late juncture the "Public Parks Protective Association" was
quietly and quickly organized by a small body of public-spirited men,
of whom the late John Jay was president and Professor Egleston
secretary. This association set itself to work most earnestly to
reveal the danger, to arouse public sentiment and public protest, and
to make these felt in the Capitol at Albany. Circulars and petitions
were prepared and widely disseminated, at the cost of great labor,
within the brief time left ere the bill should come up for passage.
The New York Academy of Sciences, speaking in the interest of public
health, passed strong resolutions of remonstrance; and various other
bodies took similar action, including the Academy of Medicine.
The result was that legislators were aroused, some to the real
character of measures that they had not fully understood, and others
to the existence of a public sentiment upon which they had not
counted, and the bill failed to pass. Nor was this all: a resolution
was adopted, prepared by the association, guaranteeing the ground
occupied by the square to be kept "forever" as a park for purposes of
public health and recreation.
That Washington Square remains to-day, an oasis of beauty in the
desert of brick and stone, and a breathing place in that densely built
portion of the great city, is due principally to the watchfulness and
energy of Professor Egleston. He it was who saved that park to the
people of New York, and a debt of lasting gratitude therefore is owing
him from them. This is an unwritten episode in the history of our
city, and the present writer, who knew something of the facts at the
time, is gratified to be able to put them on record now. But let us
not fail to note the lesson that they convey. "Eternal vigilance is
the price" of all that is valuable in a community like ours, where the
demands of business greed and the devices of political schemers and
"bosses" may at any time unite again, as in the past, for acts of
profitable vandalism, and dismiss as "sentimental" all considerations
of beauty, health, or historical association. The sanitary importance
of our smaller parks is now better understood; and the city is buying
property for such purposes at heavy cost, in localities where fifty
years ago parks could have been laid out at little expense, and
maintained at a vast saving of human health and life. Such articles,
also, as that of Dr. Stephen Smith, in the February number of this
monthly, are educating the intelligent community as to the sanitary
value of vegetation in cities. But nothing is safe or sacred where the
evil trinity of the boss, the speculator, and the "soulless"
corporation may combine their forces; and the call is for ceaseless
watchfulness.
Professor Egleston has been all his life in active association with
the religious and benevolent work of the Episcopal Church. He became
president of the Bible and Common Prayer-Book Society in 1871; was
vice-president of the Protestant Episcopal City Mission Society from
1870 to 1897; a trustee of the General Theological Seminary, and a
member of the corporation of Trinity Church from 1878. In connection
with the last-named body some of his relations have an interest wider
than his own denomination, and may fittingly be mentioned in a sketch
relating chiefly to his scientific career. Two points may here be
noted: the schools among the poorer classes maintained by the Trinity
corporation; and the unique jeweled chalice in memory of his wife,
presented by him to Trinity Church.
Aided and controlled more or less by Trinity corporation, though in
different parts of the city and in connection with different Episcopal
churches, are now eight schools, with about one thousand pupils. In
these are taught careful and scientific methods of training along
modern lines, of eye and hand development, hygiene, economy, and
thrift, to children and youth of the neediest classes. Already for
years much interested in these schools, Professor Egleston has, since
his withdrawal from professional activity, given much of his time to
their advancement, and has found intense gratification in observing
the results of this training among a class of children that, from
their general environment, would grow up to be a burden or a menace to
the city. The intelligent culture of hand and eye, the mental
quickening and moral uplifting, the capacity and purpose of honorable
self-support, and the protection from moral and social perils, that
are imparted and secured through the agency of these schools, are to
him a constant source of enthusiasm.
The jeweled chalice above referred to is of scientific interest from
the great variety and rarity of the gems with which it is set. During
years of travel to and from many parts of Europe, Professor Egleston
had remarkable opportunities, in his visits to mining regions and his
intercourse with mineralogists, to obtain fine and choice specimens of
gems; these he had mounted in elegant forms as presents to his wife,
Mrs. Augusta McVickar Egleston. Her death, in 1895, was a very great
blow to her husband, as their married life had been extremely happy;
and the only satisfactory use to which this beautiful treasure of
jewelry could be put seemed to him to be in the services of divine
worship in the church. It is not possible in brief compass, without a
figure, to describe the arrangement of these jewels on the base, stem,
and cup of the golden chalice; but it must suffice to say that there
are one hundred and eighty stones set in, with embossed work, on a cup
and pedestal nine inches high and half that width. The species and
varieties number fifteen, many of them in rare shades of color; among
them are the ruby-colored Siriam garnets, green "demantoid" garnets of
the Ural ("Uralian emerald"), Ceylonese moonstones, colored diamonds,
sapphires, both yellow and green (Oriental topaz and emerald),
rubellites, red zircon, moldavite (the rare green obsidian of
Moravia), green tourmaline, chrysoberyl, the rich purple amethysts of
the Urals, etc. Considered either mineralogically or as a work of art,
this chalice is almost unique; while the conception and designing,
which are wholly of Professor Egleston's own, reveal the same union of
artistic and scientific qualities that was shown in the Audubon
monument above mentioned, joined with a religious and a personal
sentiment almost too sacred to dwell upon in a sketch like the
present.
In all these aspects of his life and work, as we said at the
beginning, Professor Egleston has been little known to the general
public; but among scientific and engineering circles he has been
highly honored. In these pages he may become more widely known, and
the people of the metropolis and of the country at large may learn
something of the manner of man that has lived and labored so honorably
among them, and has done so much for science and his fellow-men.
Editor's Table.
_SCIENCE AND THE IDEAL._
We have had frequent occasion in these columns to refer to the tirades
against science indulged in by writers who, because they can not quite
make ends meet in their philosophy of the universe, strangely allow
themselves to think that _science_ must be at fault. At one moment it
is M. Brunetière, at another Tolstoi, at another it is a Harvard
professor or a Western school superintendent; but no very long time
elapses before we find somebody in very unnecessary trouble, as it
seems to us, over the shortcomings of science. The last sufferer to
whom our attention has been drawn is Dr. John Beattie Crozier, the
author of two able works--Civilization and Progress, and History of
Intellectual Development--who has lately written a history of his own
intellectual development under the title of My Inner Life. This writer
describes the effect upon his mind of a study of Mr. Spencer's
Principles of Psychology. "Then it was," he says, "that the ideal
within me, struck to the heart, shriveled and collapsed." This sad
result was due to the discovery, forced on him by a study of the work
in question, that all our mental experiences have equally a material
basis, and that from a material point of view or, as we may say, seen
from below, one thought or feeling is as much justified as any other.
Previously he had considered that "such higher faculties as
veneration, benevolence, conscientiousness, and the like, were quite
distinct in essential nature from low ones, like revenge, lust,
vanity, cowardice, and deceit"; but now "all this was changed, and all
the faculties alike, the high and the low, the noble and the base, the
heroic and the self-indulgent, lay on a dead level of moral and
spiritual equality ... all alike being but vibrations, vibrations,
vibrations, nothing more." Consequently, "the dethroned Ideal fell
prone and headlong like a false and usurping spirit; and my mind,
bereaved of that which had been its life, settled into a deep and
what, for a year or two, threatened to be a permanent intellectual
gloom."
It is a great pity that at this critical moment a very simple
consideration did not occur to this troubled spirit. When we read the
Sermon on the Mount we read "words, words, words"; when we read some
horrible piece of profanity or indecency it is again "words, words,
words"; when we read the demonstration of a proposition in Euclid it
is "words, words, words"; and, again, when we take up Tennyson's In
Memoriam we find that its whole tissue is "words, words, words." But
would it tend in the least to lessen one's reverence for the Sermon on
the Mount to be reminded that it was constructed out of the same
verbal elements as the piece of profanity? or would it diminish our
admiration for In Memoriam to be told that it was constructed of words
just like the dullest piece of prose? If not, then why should one be
so terribly disconcerted and depressed to find that all our mental
life finds its basis in vibrations? Or why should the inference be
drawn that, because the basis is one, all that reposes on it must also
be one in character and meaning? Is our delight in the lily or the
rose impaired by the reflection that it springs from the same soil
that produces noisome weeds; or do we gaze on the humming bird with
less admiration because it flies in the same atmosphere as the bat?
Why should "vibrations" not be the condition of existence of one
mental phenomenon as well as of another? Surely the very fact that Dr.
Crozier classes all the feelings he mentions as mental affections
should prepare him to believe that they have a common basis. But how
feelings shall be classified and ranked _after they have taken form_
is a question precisely similar to the question how the various
combinations of words should be classified and ranked. In the latter
case words are the basis of them all, but we say: "This is an epic
poem; this is a moral essay; this is an immoral novel; this is a silly
joke; this is a market report." Are these distinctions illusory
because words are the basis and substance of all these various forms
of composition? Does the poem lose anything of its beauty, or the
essay anything of its ethical value, because each was not composed of
elements altogether peculiar to itself? The solid globe itself was
once a diffused nebula, but we do not on that account find a less
varied beauty in flower and tree, in hillside and running brook and
grandly flowing river.
In his sad condition of mental disarray our author betook himself, he
says, to the counsels of Thomas Carlyle. That sage, when he heard that
his visitor had been reading Spencer, made some uncomplimentary
remarks about the latter which we hardly think the visitor was
justified in repeating. Apart from this, Carlyle told him in effect
that, as he was in the world, he had just to make the best of it, and
that in time he would find work that he could do with benefit to
himself and others. Finally, our author made what he calls a discovery
and offers as a contribution to modern philosophy--namely, that in the
mind of man there is a "scale," according to which thoughts and
feelings are appraised. Some are high up on the scale and some are low
down. He found that there is that _in_ the mind which is not _of_ the
mind, and which sits in judgment on all the contents of the
mind--something which smiles on every right action and frowns on every
wrong one, and yet which he does not care to speak of as conscience.
Here was the antidote he required to the "pure and undiluted
materialism" which had so paralyzed his moral being in the Principles
of Psychology; and, having obtained it, he has been living happily, as
we gather, ever since.
We have tried to do justice to the originality of Dr. Crozier's
conception, but really with indifferent success. That there is a scale
by which we are all accustomed to measure the varying values of our
thoughts, feelings, and actions hardly needs to be stated; and that
there is substantial agreement between men on the same plane of
civilization as to the relative values of different mental products is
also unquestionably true. What our author has not shown is how this
conflicts with the strict scientific position taken in the Principles
of Psychology. He does not tell us that he has repudiated the
teachings of that work; indeed, he gives us distinctly to understand
that, so far as it affirms the dependence of thought upon physical
organization, he adheres to it still. If so, he has only built upon it
a superstructure which it was always open to him to build; so, why he
should find fault with the foundation it is not easy to see. Science
goes as far as she can see her way to go in setting forth the
relations between the mind of man and the environing universe. It
studies also the human mind in its historical manifestations, and
tries to unfold the laws of human conduct. It confines itself to facts
which are believed to admit of verification and to inferences which
have been tested by experience. This is the contribution of Science
to the theory of human life. But because Science stops here she does
not lay any veto on thought, desire, or hope. She lays a foundation;
it is for us to build thereon "gold, silver, precious stones, wood,
hay, stubble," each of us according to our own impulse and upon our
own responsibility. The fire of experience will "try every man's work
of what sort it is." But not only may we build, we must build; no one
can live upon another man's philosophy. We may adopt this creed or
that, but it means nothing to us till we have worked it over in our
own mind and made it our own--with modifications.
There is nothing whatever in science that conflicts with the ideal.
Strictly speaking, science brings us to the threshold of the ideal,
and leaves us there. "These are the facts of life," it says; "such has
been the course of human history. The human race has risen from humble
origins to its present commanding position in the world; and to-day
the standards of human conduct and the conditions of human happiness
are very different from what they were in the distant past. Social
ties have multiplied and strengthened. Domestic affections have grown
in depth and tenderness, and individual happiness is now bound up to a
very large extent in the happiness of other individuals. The cruel
superstitions of the past have given way in many minds to a reverent
regard for a power which is felt to rule in the universe. Of such a
power Science can not render any exact account; but before all the
ultimate questions of existence Science is dumb; nor can it attempt to
reconcile the antinomies which assert themselves in all phenomena. It
is for you, the individual, entering upon life, to make your choice of
the course you shall hold and the principles by which you shall be
governed. The senses are the guides to immediate pleasure, but the
experience of the ages has settled with considerable approach to
certainty the conditions on which enduring happiness is to be won.
"'Choose well; your choice is
Brief and yet endless.'"