SCIENTISTS AND EDUCATORS
To give even the briefest account, within the limits of a single
chapter, of the lives of noteworthy American scientists and educators
is, of course, quite beyond the bounds of possibility. All that can be
done, even at best, is to mention a few of the greatest names and to
indicate in outline the particular achievements with which they are
associated. That is all that has been attempted here. There are at least
a hundred men, in addition to those mentioned in this chapter, whose
work is of consequence in the development of American science and
education. The record of their achievements is an inspiring one which,
if properly told, would occupy many volumes.
In the annals of American science, two names stand out with peculiar
lustre--John James Audubon and Louis Agassiz. Neither was, strictly
speaking, American, for Agassiz was born in Switzerland and did not come
to this country until he was nearly forty years of age; while Audubon
was born in French territory, the son of a French naval officer, and was
educated in France. But the work of both men was distinctively American,
for Audubon devoted his life to the study of American birds, and
Agassiz the latter part of his to the study and classification of
American fishes--as well as to services of the most valuable kind in the
field of geology and paleontology.
Audubon's story is a curious and interesting one. His father, the son of
a Vendean fisherman, after working his way up to the command of a French
man-of-war, purchased a plantation in Louisiana, which at that time
belonged to France. He married there, and there, in 1780, John James
Audubon was born. He was a precocious child, and early developed a love
for nature, which his parents encouraged in every way they could. He was
especially fond of drawing birds and coloring his drawings. He acquired
so much skill in doing this that his father sent him to Paris and placed
him in the studio of the celebrated painter, David.
It is related of young Audubon that his drawings for many years fell so
far short of his ideal, that on each of his birthdays he regularly made
a bonfire of all he had produced during the previous year. He cared for
nothing else, however, and after his return to America, his home became
a museum of birds' eggs and stuffed birds. He took long tramps through
the wilderness, with no companions save dog and gun, all the time adding
new drawings to his collection. Some birds he was obliged to shoot,
afterwards supporting them in natural positions while he painted them;
others which he could not approach, he drew with the aid of a telescope,
representing them amid their natural surroundings, and all with
painstaking care and exactitude.
This work, occupying years of time, and accompanied by every sort of
suffering and exposure, by long trips through the wilderness of the
west, in heat and cold, snow and rain, was carried forward from pure
love of nature and enthusiasm for the work itself, without thought or
hope of reward. Audubon's friends began to consider him a kind of
harmless madman, for what sane person would devote his life to a work so
laborious and seemingly so useless? He made a little money occasionally
by giving drawing lessons; but he was never content except when roaming
the plains and forests, hunting for some new specimen. For his ambition
was to study and draw every kind of bird which lived in America.
In 1824 he happened to be in Philadelphia, and met there a son of Lucien
Bonaparte, to whom he showed his drawings. The Frenchman was at once
deeply interested, for he saw their beauty and value, and he urged upon
Audubon that some arrangement be made by which they could be published
and given to the world. The obstacles in the way of such an enterprise
were enormous, for the processes of color reproduction at that time were
slow and expensive, and it was estimated that the cost of the entire
work would exceed a hundred thousand dollars.
But Audubon had overcome obstacles before that, and three years later he
issued the prospectus of his famous "Birds of America." It was to
consist of four folio volumes of plates, and the price of each copy was
fixed at a thousand dollars. Three years more were spent in securing
subscriptions, and then the work of publication began, though Audubon
had barely enough money to pay for a single issue. Funds came in,
however, after the appearance of the first number, and the work went
steadily forward to completion in 1839. It was called by the great
naturalist, Cuvier, "the most magnificent monument that art ever raised
to ornithology." It contained 448 beautifully colored plates, showing
1065 species of North American birds, each of them life size.
Before it was completed, Audubon had planned another work on similar
lines, to be known as "The Quadrupeds of America," and set to work at
once to gather the necessary material, which meant the study from life
of each of these animals. He even projected an extensive trip to the
Rocky Mountains in search of material, but was pursuaded by his friends
to give it up, as he was then nearly sixty years of age, and suffering
from the effects of his long years of exposure. His sons assisted him in
the preparation of the work, the first volume of which appeared in 1846,
the last in 1854, three years after his death.
Audubon's life illustrates strikingly the compelling power of devotion
to an ideal. Few men have met such discouragements as he, and fewer
still have overcome them. For many years, in all climates, in all
weathers, pausing at no difficulty or peril, his life frequently
endangered by wild beasts or still wilder savages, he trudged the
pathless wilderness, quite alone, sleeping under a rude shelter of
boughs or in a hollow tree, living on such game as he could shoot,
seeking only one thing, new birds, and when he found them, observing
their habits and setting them on paper with an infinite patience. On one
occasion, rats got into the room where his drawings were stored, and
destroyed almost all of them; but he set to work at once re-drawing
them, where most men would have given up in despair. His work remains to
this day the standard one on American birds--a mighty monument to the
ideals of its maker.
[Illustration: AGASSIZ]
Jean Louis Rudolphe Agassiz was also a born naturalist, but no such
obstacles confronted him as Audubon surmounted, nor did he strike out
for himself a field so absolutely original. Born in Switzerland in 1807,
the descendent of six generations of preachers, but destined for the
profession of medicine, he refused to be anything but a naturalist. From
his earliest years, he showed a passion for gathering specimens, and his
first collection of fishes was made when he was ten years old. He
received the very best training to be had in Switzerland, France and
Germany, and early attracted attention for original work of the most
important description. He came to be recognized as the greatest
authority on fishes in Europe, and his work on fossil fishes, published
in 1843, was a contribution to science of the first importance.
In 1846, Agassiz came to the United States, partly to deliver a course
of lectures at Boston and partly to make himself familiar with the
geology and natural history of this country. His reception was so
cordial and he found so much to interest him here, that he accepted
the chair of zoology and geology in the Lawrence Scientific School at
Cambridge, Massachusetts, and decided to make the United States his
home. He soon made Cambridge a great scientific centre, and proved
himself the most inspiring, magnetic and influential teacher of science
this country has ever seen.
In succeeding years, he traversed practically the entire country,
accumulating vast collections of specimens which formed the foundation
of the great natural history museum at Cambridge. He was preparing
himself for the publication of a comprehensive work to be called
"Contributions to the Natural History of the United States," the first
volume of which appeared in 1857. Succeeding years were occupied with a
journey to Brazil, another around Cape Horn, and the establishment of
the Pekinese Island school of natural history, where he was able to
carry out his long contemplated plan of teaching directly from nature.
But his labors had impaired his health, and he died in Cambridge in
1873, after a short illness. His grave is marked by a boulder from the
glacier of the Aar, and shaded by pine trees brought from his native
Switzerland.
Agassiz was one of the most remarkable teachers of science that ever
lived. Handsome, enthusiastic, overflowing with vitality, and with a
learning broad and deep, his students found in him a real inspiration to
intellectual endeavor. His lectures, however technical and abstruse
their subjects, were of an incomparable clarity and simplicity. He was
one of the first to advocate the teaching of science to women, not in
its technical details, but in its broad outlines.
"What I wish for you," he said, one day, addressing a class of girls,
"is a culture that is alive and active. My instruction is only intended
to show you the thoughts in nature which science reveals.
"A physical fact is as sacred as a moral principle," he used to say.
"Our own nature demands from us this double allegiance."
Of the pupils of Agassiz, not the least famous was his son, Alexander,
who, after graduating from Harvard, assisted his father in his work,
collected many specimens for the museum at Cambridge, and was finally
appointed assistant in zoology there. In the following years he put his
scientific knowledge to a very practical use. In his geological surveys
of the country, he had been impressed with the richness of the copper
mines on Lake Superior. For five years, he acted as superintendent of
the famous Calumet and Hecla mines, developing them into the most
successful copper mines in the world, and himself gaining wealth from
them which permitted his making gifts to Harvard aggregating half a
million dollars. It was characteristic of him that, after his service
with the Calumet and Hecla, he resumed his duties at the museum at
Cambridge, and continued as curator until ill health compelled his
resignation in 1885.
Among other pupils of Agassiz who won more than ordinary fame as
naturalists may be mentioned Albert Smith Bickmore, Alonzo Howard
Clark, Charles Frederick Hartt, Alpheus Hyatt, Theodore Lyman, Edward
Sylvester Morse, Alpheus Spring Packard, Frederick Ward Putnam, Samuel
Hubbard Scudder, Nathaniel Southgate Shaler, William Stimpson, Sanborn
Tenney, Addison Emory Merrill, Burt Green Wilder and Henry Augustus
Ward--as brilliant a galaxy of names as American science can boast,
bearing remarkable testimony to the inspiring qualities of their great
teacher.
What Agassiz did for geology and natural history, Asa Gray to some
extent did for botany. Born at Paris, N. Y., in 1810, and at an early
age abandoning the study of medicine for that of botany, he accepted, in
1842, a call to the Fisher professorship of natural history at Harvard,
a post which he held for over thirty years. Gray's work began at the
time when the old artificial system of classification was giving way to
the natural system, and he, perhaps more than any other one man,
established this system firmly on the basis of affinity.
In 1864, he presented to Harvard his herbarium of more than two hundred
thousand specimens, and his botanical library. He remained in charge of
the herbarium until his death, adding to it constantly, until it became
one of the most complete in the world. His publications upon the subject
of botany were numerous and of the highest order of scholarship, and
long before his death he was recognized as the foremost botanist of the
country.
Scarcely inferior to him in reputation was John Torrey. It was to
Torrey that Gray owed his first lessons in botany, and if the pupil
afterwards surpassed the master, it was because he was able to build on
the foundations which the master laid. John Torrey, born in New York
City in 1796, was the son of a Revolutionary soldier, and in early life
determined to become a machinist, but afterwards studied medicine and
began to practice in New York, taking up the study of botany as an
avocation. He found the profession of medicine uncongenial, and finally
abandoned it altogether for science, serving for many years as professor
of chemistry and botany at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New
York City. The succeeding years brought him many honors, and saw many
works of importance issue from his hands.
The progress of the last century in the various branches of science is
an interesting study, and America has made no inconsiderable
contributions to every one of them. In astronomy, six names are worthy
of mention here. The first of these, John William Draper, was noted for
his devotion to many other lines of science, especially to photography,
and was the first person in the world to take a photograph of a human
being. His service to astronomy was in the application of photography to
that science. In 1840, he took the first photograph ever made of the
moon, and a few years later published his "Production of Light by Heat,"
an early and exceedingly important contribution to the subject of
spectrum analysis.
His work in astronomy and more especially in physics was carried
on most worthily by his son, Henry Draper, who, at his home at
Hastings-on-the-Hudson, built himself an observatory, mounting in it a
reflecting telescope, which he also made. His description of the
processes of grinding, polishing, silvering, testing and mounting it has
remained the standard work on the subject. With this telescope he took a
photograph of the moon which remains one of the best that has ever been
made. Among his other noteworthy achievements were his spectrum
photographs of 1872 and 1873, and in 1880 his photograph of the great
nebula in Orion, the first photograph of a nebula ever secured. Perhaps
the most brilliant discovery ever made in physical science by an
American was that by Draper in 1877, when he demonstrated the presence
of oxygen in the sun so conclusively that it could not be disputed. It
was a sort of _tour de force_ that took the scientific world by surprise
and gained its author the widest recognition.
The services of Lewis Morris Rutherford to astronomy resembled in many
ways those of Draper. Starting in life as a lawyer, he abandoned that
profession at the age of thirty-three to devote his whole time to
science, principally to the perfection of astronomical photography and
spectrum analysis. The service which photography has rendered to
astronomy can scarcely be overestimated, and these pioneers in the art
were laying the foundations for its recent wonderful developments. He
was the first to attempt to classify the stars according to their
spectra, and invented a number of instruments of the greatest service in
star photography. All in all, it is doubtful if anyone added more to the
development of this branch of the science than did he.
Very different from the services of these men were those rendered the
science of astronomy by Charles Augustus Young. Called to the chair of
astronomy at Princeton University in 1877, he held that important
position for thirty years, his courses a source of inspiration to his
students. He was a member of many important scientific expeditions,
invented an automatic spectroscope which has never been displaced,
measured the velocity of the sun's rotation, and was a large contributor
to public knowledge of the science.
Equally important have been the contributions made by Samuel Pierpont
Langley, perhaps the greatest authority on the sun alive to-day. He
showed a decided fondness for astronomy even as a boy, and at the age of
thirty was assistant in the observatory at Harvard. Two years later, he
was invited to fill the chair of astronomy in the Western University of
Pennsylvania at Pittsburgh, and his work there began with the
establishment of a complete time service, the first step toward the
present daily time service conducted by the government. In 1870, he
began the series of brilliant researches on the sun which have placed
him at the head of authorities on that body. His scientific papers are
very numerous and his series of magazine articles on "The New
Astronomy" did much to acquaint the public with the rapid development of
the science. In 1887, he was chosen to the important post of secretary
of the Smithsonian Institution, and his recent years have been spent in
experimenting with aeronautics.
Simon Newcomb is another who rendered yeoman service to the science.
Born in Nova Scotia, the son of the village schoolmaster, he lived to
become one of the eight foreign associates of the Institute of France,
the first native American since Franklin to be so honored; to win the
Huygens medal, given once in twenty years to the astronomer who had done
the greatest service to the science in that period, and to receive the
highest degree from practically every American college.
In his autobiography he tells how, at the age of five, he began to study
arithmetic, at twelve algebra, and at thirteen Euclid. At the age of
eighteen, planning to make his way to the United States, he set out on
foot, taught school for a year or so, and then attracted the attention
of Prof. Joseph Henry, of the Smithsonian Institution, by sending him a
problem in algebra. The unusual aptitude for mathematics which the boy
possessed so impressed Prof. Henry, that he set him to work as a
computer on the Nautical Almanac; but he was soon attracted to "exact,"
or mathematical astronomy, which became his life work. Some idea of its
importance may be gained when it is stated that every astronomer in the
world to-day uses his determinations of the movements of the planets
and the moon; every skipper in the world guides his ship by tables which
Newcomb devised; and every eclipse is computed according to his tables.
He supervised the construction and mounting of the equatorial telescope
in the naval observatory at Washington, the Lick telescope, and Russia
applied to him, in 1873, for aid in placing her great telescope.
A man of humor, sympathy and anecdote, he found, in the fall of 1908,
that he was suffering from cancer, and hastened the work on the moon,
which was to be his masterpiece. Ten months later, he was told that his
course was nearly run--and his great work was still incomplete.
"Take me to Washington," he said, "I must work while there is time."
And there, lying in agony on his bed, for three weeks he dictated
steadily to stenographers on a subject which required the utmost
concentration. His indomitable will alone supported him, and a week
after the last word had been written, came the end. Verily, there was a
man!
The last of the great American astronomers whom we shall mention here is
Edward Charles Pickering, whose name is so closely connected with the
development of the great observatory at Harvard. Born at Boston, and
educated at the Lawrence Scientific School, his first work was in the
field of physics, but in 1876, he was appointed professor of astronomy
and geodesy, and director of the Harvard observatory, which, under his
management, has become of the first importance. His principal work has
been the determination of the relative brightness of the stars, and many
thousands have been charted. On the death of Henry Draper, the study of
the spectra of the stars by means of photography was continued as a
memorial to that great scientist, and the results obtained have been of
the most important character, including a star map of the entire
heavens. Other phases of the science of scarcely less importance have
been carefully developed, and the work which has been done under
Pickering's direction, is second to none in the history of the science.
Not satisfied with the Northern hemisphere, a branch has been
established in Peru, in which the observatory's methods of research have
been extended to the south celestial pole. So for eighteen years and
more, it has kept ceaseless watch of the heavens, with an accuracy of
which the world has hardly a conception. For this great work the
scientific world must pay tribute to the genius and perseverance of
Edward Charles Pickering.
The second department of science claiming our attention is that of
paleontology. Here one of the most eminent of American names is that of
Othniel Charles Marsh. A graduate of Yale and firmly grounded in zoology
and kindred sciences by a course of study at Heidelberg and Berlin, he
returned to the United States in 1866 to accept the chair of
paleontology which had been established for him at Yale. The remainder
of his life was devoted to the original investigation of extinct
vertebrates, especially in the Rocky Mountain regions. In these
explorations, more than a thousand new species of extinct vertebrates
were brought to light, many of which possess great scientific interest,
representing new orders never before discovered in America. So important
was this work that the national geological survey undertook the
publication of his reports, which formed the most remarkable
contributions to the subject ever written in this country, attracting
the attention and admiration of the whole scientific world.
Associated with Marsh as paleontologist for the Geological Survey was
Edward Drinker Cope, whose work was second only to the older man's in
importance. He also devoted much of his attention to the exploration of
the Rocky Mountain region, and found that there, in the strata of the
ancient lake beds, records of the age of mammals had been made and
preserved with a fulness surpassing that of any other known region on
earth. The profusion of vertebrate remains brought to light was almost
unbelievable. Prof. Marsh, who was first in the field, found three
hundred new tertiary species between 1870 and 1876, besides unearthing
the remains of two hundred birds with teeth, six hundred flying dragons,
and fifteen hundred sea serpents, some of them sixty feet in length. In
a single bed of rock not larger than a good sized lecture room, he found
the remains of no less than one hundred and sixty mammals.
It was this work which Prof. Cope took up and carried forward. Its
importance may be appreciated when it is stated that among these
remains are found examples of just such intermediate types of organisms
as must have existed if the succession of life on the earth has been an
unbroken lineal succession. Here are snakes with wings and legs, and
birds with teeth and other snakelike characteristics, bridging the gap
between modern birds and reptiles. The line of descent of the horse, the
camel, the hippopotamus and other mammals has been traced to a single
ancestor, the result being the proof of the theory of evolution.
The whole work of American paleontology has, of course, been along these
lines. Agassiz himself was a living and vital force in it, as were such
men as Joseph Leidy and H. F. Osborne.
* * * * *
It is a remarkable fact that one of the few truly original and novel
ideas the past century can boast, and the one which has had the deepest
influence on geology, had its origin in the brain of an illiterate Swiss
chamois hunter named Perraudin. Throughout the Alps, on lofty crags,
great bowlders were often found, which had no relation to the geology of
the region and which were called erratics, because they had evidently
come there from a distance. But how? Scientists explained it in many
ways, but it remained for the mountaineer to suggest that the bowlders
had been left in their present positions by glaciers. The scientific
world laughed at the idea, but ten years later, it was brought to the
attention of Louis Agassiz; he investigated it, became a convert, and
saw that its implications extended far beyond the Alps, for these
erratic bowlders were found on mountains and plains throughout the
northern hemisphere. Agassiz found everywhere evidences of glacial
action, and became convinced that at one time a great ice cap had
covered the globe down to the higher latitudes of the northern
hemisphere. So came the conception of a universal Ice Age, now one of
the accepted tenets of geology.
The dean of American geologists was Benjamin Silliman, who, at the very
beginning of the nineteenth century, took up at Yale University the work
which he was to carry on so successfully for more than fifty years. As
an inspiring teacher he was scarcely less successful than Agassiz at a
later day. His popular lectures began in 1808 and soon attracted to New
Haven the brightest young men in the country. Among them was James
Dwight Dana, who was to carry on most worthily the work which Prof.
Silliman had begun.
James Dwight Dana was attracted to Yale by Prof. Silliman's great
reputation and received there the inspiration which started him upon a
scientific career. Three years after his graduation, he was appointed
assistant to his former instructor, and two years later sailed for the
South Seas as mineralogist and geologist of the United States exploring
expedition commanded by Charles Wilkes. He was absent for three years
and spent thirteen more in studying and classifying the material he had
collected. He then resumed his work at Yale, succeeding Prof. Silliman
in the chair of geology and mineralogy. His work was recognized
throughout the world as most important, and many honors were conferred
upon him.
Another famous name in American geology is that of John Strong Newberry.
His name is connected principally with the explorations of the Columbia
and Colorado rivers. He was afterwards appointed professor of geology
and paleontology at the Columbia College School of Mines, and took
charge of that department in the autumn of 1866. During his connection
with the institution, he created a museum of over one hundred thousand
specimens, principally collected by himself, containing the best
representation of the mineral resources of the United States to be found
anywhere.
Among the pupils of Prof. Silliman who afterwards won a wide reputation
was Josiah Dwight Whitney. Graduating from Yale in 1839, he spent five
years studying in Europe, and then, returning to America, was connected
with the survey of the Lake Superior region, of Iowa, of the upper
Missouri, and of California, issuing a number of books giving the
results of these investigations, and in 1865, being called to the chair
of geology at Harvard.
Still another of Prof. Silliman's pupils was Edward Hitchcock, whose
life was an unusually interesting one. His parents were poor and he
spent his boyhood working on a farm or as a carpenter, gaining such
education as he could by studying at night. Deciding to enter the
ministry, he managed to work his way through Yale theological seminary,
graduating at the age of twenty-seven. It was here that he came under
the influence of Prof. Silliman, and after a laboratory course and much
field work, he was chosen professor of chemistry and natural history at
Amherst College. He held this position for twenty years, and in 1845 was
chosen president of the college, transforming it, before his retirement
nine years later, from a poor and struggling institution into a
well-endowed and firmly established one. He had meanwhile served as
state geologist of Massachusetts, and completed the first survey of an
entire state ever made by authority of a government.
The most important recent contribution to American geology has been the
three volume work issued in 1904-5, under the joint editorship of Thomas
C. Chamberlain and Rollin D. Salisbury. Both are geologists of wide
experience, and their work presents the present status of the science
interestingly and simply.
* * * * *
America has had her full share of daring and successful surgeons, and in
the science of surgery stands to-day second to no nation on earth, but
perhaps the most famous American surgeon who ever lived was Valentine
Mott. Dr. Mott was descended from a long line of Quaker ancestors, and
was born in 1785. His father was a physician, and Dr. Mott began his
medical and surgical studies at the age of nineteen, first in New York
City, and afterwards in the hospitals of London, where he made a
specialty of the study of practical anatomy by the method of dissection.
At that time there was in this country a deep-seated prejudice against
the use of the human body for this purpose, and the experience which Dr.
Mott secured in London, and which stood him in such good stead in after
years, would have been impossible of attainment here. A year was also
spent in Edinburgh, and finally, in 1809, Dr. Mott returned to America
with an exceptional equipment.
His skill won him a wide reputation and he was soon recognized as one of
the first surgeons of the age. His boldness and originality were
exceptional, and his success was no doubt due in some degree to his
constant practice throughout his life of performing every novel and
important operation upon a cadaver before operating upon the living
subject. To describe in detail the operations which he originated would
be too technical for such a book as this, but many of them were of the
first importance. Sir Astley Cooper said of him: "Dr. Mott has performed
more of the great operations than any man living, or that ever did
live." He possessed all the qualifications of a great operator,
extraordinary keenness of sight, steadiness of nerve, and physical
vigor. He could use his left hand as skillfully as his right, and
developed a dexterity which has never been surpassed.
It should be remembered that in those days the use of anaesthetics had
not yet been discovered, and every operation had to be performed upon
the conscious subject, as he lay strapped upon the table shrieking with
agony. To perform an operation under such circumstances required an iron
nerve. Dr. Mott was one of the first to recognize the value of
anaesthetics, and his use of them, immediately following their discovery,
greatly facilitated their rapid and general introduction.
It is one of the boasts of American medicine that the first man in the
world to conceive the idea that the administration of a definite drug
might render a surgical operation painless was an American--Crawford W.
Long. Dr. Long graduated from the medical department of the University
of Pennsylvania in 1839. When a student, he had once inhaled ether for
its intoxicant effects, and while partially under the influence of the
drug, had noticed that a chance blow to his shin produced no pain. This
gave him the idea that ether might be used in surgical operations, and
on March 30, 1842, at Jefferson, Georgia, he used it with entire
success. He repeated the experiment several times, but he did not
entirely trust the evidence of these experiments. So he delayed
announcing the discovery until he had subjected it to further tests, and
while these experiments were going on, another American, Dr. W. T. G.
Morton, of Boston, also hit upon the great discovery and announced it to
the world.
Dr. Morton was a dentist who, in 1841, introduced a new kind of solder
by which false teeth could be fastened to gold plates. Then, in the
endeavor to extract teeth without pain, he tried stimulants, opium and
magnetism without success, and finally sulphuric ether. On September 30,
1846, he administered ether to a patient and removed a tooth without
pain; the next day he repeated the experiment, and the next. Then,
filled with the immense possibilities of his discovery, he went to Dr.
J. C. Warren, one of the foremost surgeons of Boston, and asked
permission to test it decisively on one of the patients at the Boston
hospital during a severe operation. The request was granted, and on
October 16, 1846, the test was made in the presence of a large body of
surgeons and students. The patient slept quietly while the surgeon's
knife was plied, and awoke to an astonished comprehension that the
dreadful ordeal was over. The impossible, the miraculous, had been
accomplished; suffering mankind had received such a blessing as it had
never received before, and American surgery had scored its greatest
triumph. Swiftly as steam could carry it, the splendid news was heralded
to all the world, and its truth was soon established by repeated
experiments.
To tell of the work of the men who came after these pioneers in the
field of surgery and medicine is a task quite beyond the compass of this
little volume. There are at least a score whose achievements are of the
first importance, and nowhere in the world has this great science, which
has for its aim the alleviation of human suffering, reached a higher
development.
Among the physicists of the country, Joseph Henry takes a high place.
His boyhood and youth were passed in a struggle for existence. He was
placed in a store at the age of ten, and remained there for five years.
At the age of fifteen he was apprenticed to a watchmaker, and had some
thought of studying for the stage, but during a brief illness, he
started to read Dr. Gregory's "Lectures on Experimental Philosophy,
Astronomy and Chemistry," and forthwith decided to become a scientist.
He began to study in the evenings, managed to take a course of
instruction at the academy at Albany, New York, and finally, in 1826,
was made professor of mathematics there.
Almost at once began a series of brilliant experiments in electricity
which have linked his name with that of Benjamin Franklin as one of the
two most original investigators in that branch of science which this
country has ever produced. His first work was the improving of existing
forms of apparatus, and his first important discovery was that of the
electro-magnet. His development of the "intensity" magnet in 1830 made
the electric telegraph a possibility. Two years later he was called to
the chair of natural philosophy at Princeton University, where he
continued his investigations, many of which have been of permanent value
to science. In 1846, he was elected first secretary of the Smithsonian
Institution, and removed to Washington, where the last forty years of
his life were passed in the development of the great scientific
establishment of which he was the head. He steadily refused the most
flattering offers of other positions, among them the presidency of
Princeton, and like Agassiz, he might have answered, when tempted by
larger salaries, "I cannot afford to waste my time in making money." To
his efforts is largely due the establishment of the national lighthouse
system, as well as that of the national weather bureau.
Besides his services to American science as instructor at Harvard
College, Louis Agassiz rendered another when he persuaded Arnold Guyot,
his colleague in the college at Neuchatel, to accompany him to this
country. Guyot was at that time forty years old, and was already widely
known as a geologist and naturalist, and the delivery of a series of
lectures before the Lowell Institute, established his reputation in this
country. He was soon invited to the chair of physical geography and
geology at Princeton, which he held until his death. He founded the
museum at Princeton, which has since become one of the best of its kind
in the United States. Perhaps he is best known for the series of
geographies he prepared, and which were at one time widely used in
schools throughout the United States.
Perhaps no family has been more closely associated with American science
than that of the Huguenot Le Conte, who settled at New Rochelle, New
York, about the close of the seventeenth century, moving afterwards to
New Jersey. There, in 1782, Lewis Le Conte was born. He was graduated at
Columbia at the age of seventeen and started to study medicine, but was
soon afterwards called to the management of the family estates of
Woodsmanston, in Georgia. There he established a botanical garden and a
laboratory in which he tested the discoveries of the chemists of the
day. His death resulted from poison that was taken into his system while
dressing a wound for a member of his family.
His son, John Le Conte, after studying medicine and beginning the
practice of his profession at Savannah, Georgia, was called to the chair
of natural philosophy and chemistry at Franklin College, and after some
years in educational work, was appointed professor of physics and
industrial mechanics in the University of California, which position he
held until his death, serving also for some years as president of the
University. His scientific work extended over a period of more than half
a century, being confined almost exclusively to physical science, in
which he was one of the first authorities.
Another son of Lewis, Joseph Le Conte, like his brother, studied
medicine and started to practice it; but in 1850, attracted by the great
work being done by Louis Agassiz, he entered the Lawrence Scientific
School at Harvard, devoting his attention especially to geology. After
holding a number of minor positions, he became professor of geology and
natural history in the University of California in 1869, and his most
important work was done there in the shape of original investigations in
geology, which placed him in the front rank of American geologists.
Lewis Le Conte had a brother, John Eathan Le Conte, who was also widely
known as a naturalist of unusual attainments. He published many papers
upon various branches of botany and zoology, and collected a vast amount
of material for a natural history of American insects, only a part of
which was published. His son, John Lawrence Le Conte, was a pupil of
Agassiz, and conducted extensive explorations of the Lake Superior and
upper Mississippi regions, and of the Colorado river. He afterwards made
a number of expeditions to Honduras, Panama, Europe, Egypt and Algiers,
collecting material for a work on the fauna of the world, which,
however, was left uncompleted at his death.
American science recently suffered a heavy loss in the death of
Nathaniel Southgate Shaler, one of the most brilliant of the pupils of
Agassiz, and from 1864 until the time of his death, connected with the
geological department of Harvard University, rising to the full
professorship in geology, which he held for over twenty years, and to
the position of dean of the Lawrence Scientific School. He did much to
increase public interest in and knowledge of the development of the
science by frequent popular articles in the leading magazines, in
addition to more technical books and memoirs intended especially for
scientists.
Of living scientists, we can do no more than mention a few. Perhaps the
most famous, and dearest to the popular heart is John Burroughs, a
nature philosopher, if there ever was one, a keen observer of the life
of field and forest, and the author of a long list of lovable books. One
of the leaders in the "return to nature" movement which has reached
such wide proportions of recent years, he has held his position as its
prophet and interpreter against the assaults of younger, more energetic,
but narrower men.
Prominent in the same field is Liberty Hyde Bailey, since 1903 director
of the College of Agriculture at Cornell University. His early training
took place under Asa Gray, and his attention has been devoted
principally to botanical and horticultural subjects. He has written many
books, his principal work being his Cyclopedia of American Horticulture,
which has just been completed. Other recent important contributions to
science have been made by Vernon L. Kellogg, whose work has dealt
principally with American insects, and whose recent book on that subject
has been recognized as a standard authority; by Charles Edward Bessey,
professor of botany at the University of Nebraska since 1884, a pupil of
Dr. Asa Gray and the author of a number of valued books upon the subject
which has been his life work; by George Frederick Barker, now emeritus
professor of physics in the University of Pennsylvania, and the
recipient of high honors at home and abroad; and by many others whom it
is not necessary to mention here.
It will be evident enough from the foregoing that American science can
boast no men of commanding genius--no men, that is, to rank with Darwin,
or Huxley, or Lord Kelvin, or Sir Isaac Newton, to mention only
Englishmen. Its record has been one of respectable achievement rather
than of brilliant originality, but is yet one of which we have no
reason to be ashamed.
* * * * *
Most of the men mentioned in this chapter have, in the widest sense been
educators. Agassiz, Gray, Silliman, Guyot--all were educators in the
fullest and truest way. It remains for us to consider a few others who
have labored in this country for the spread of knowledge. That the
present educational system of the United States is not a spontaneous
growth, but has been carefully fostered and directed, goes without
saying. It is the result, first, of a wise interest and support on the
part of the state, which early recognized the importance of educating
its citizens, and, second, of the self-sacrificing efforts of a number
of intelligent, earnest, and public-spirited men.
One of the first of these was Horace Mann, born in Massachusetts in
1796, the son of a poor farmer. His struggle to gain an education was a
desperate one, and its story cannot but be inspiring. As a child he
earned his school books by braiding straw, and his utmost endeavors,
between the ages of ten and twenty, could secure him no more than six
weeks' schooling in any one year. Consequently he was twenty-three years
of age when he graduated from Brown University, instead of seventeen or
eighteen, as would have been the case had he had the usual
opportunities. He went to work at once as a tutor in Latin and Greek,
studied law, was admitted to the bar, elected to the state legislature
and afterwards to the senate, and finally entered upon his real work as
secretary to the Massachusetts board of education.
He introduced a thorough reform into the school system of the state,
made a trip of inspection through European schools, and by his lectures
and writings awakened an interest in the cause of education which had
never before been felt. His reports were reprinted in other states,
attaining the widest circulation. It is noteworthy that as early as
1847, he advocated the disuse of corporal punishment in school
discipline. After a service of some years as member of Congress, during
which he threw all his influence against slavery, he accepted the
presidency of Antioch College, at Yellow Springs, Ohio, where he
continued until his death. It was there that the experiment of
co-education was tried, and found to work successfully, and the
foundations laid for one of the most characteristic of recent great
development of higher school education in America. Oberlin College, also
in Ohio, had by a few years preceded Dr. Mann's experiment, but the
latter's great reputation as an educator caused his ardent advocacy of
co-education to carry great weight with the public. From this time on it
became a custom, as state universities opened in the west, to admit
women, and the custom gradually spread to the east and even to some of
the larger colleges supported by private endowments.
Turning to the three great universities, Harvard, Yale, and Princeton,
which have done so much for the intellectual welfare of the country, we
find a galaxy of brilliant names. On the list of Harvard presidents,
three stand out pre-eminent--Josiah Quincy, Edward Everett, and Charles
William Eliot. Josiah Quincy, third of the name of the great
Massachusetts Quincys, graduated at Harvard in 1790 at the head of his
class, studied law, drifted inevitably into politics, held a number of
offices, which do not concern us here, and finally, after a remarkable
term as mayor of Boston, was, in 1829, chosen president of Harvard. The
work that he did there was important in the extreme. He introduced the
system of marking which continued in use for over forty years;
instituted the elective system, which permitted the student to shape his
course of study to suit the career which he had chosen; secured large
endowments, and, when he retired from the presidency in 1845, left the
college in the foremost position among American institutions of
learning. Edward Everett, who was president of the college from 1846-49,
was more prominent as a statesman than as an educator, and an outline of
his career will be found in "Men of Action." The third of the trio,
Charles William Eliot, whose term as president of the college covered a
period of forty years, is rightly regarded as one of the greatest, if
not the greatest educator this country has produced.
[Illustration: ELIOT]
Graduating from Harvard in 1853, at the age of nineteen, he devoted his
attention principally to chemistry, and, after some years of teaching,
and of study in Europe, was, in 1865, appointed professor of chemistry
in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The same year, a
revolution occurred in the government of Harvard, which was transferred
from the state legislature to the graduates of the college. The effect
of the change was greatly to strengthen the interest of the alumni in
the management of the university, and to prepare the way for extensive
and thorough reforms. Considerable time was spent in searching for the
right man for president and finally, in 1869, Prof. Eliot was chosen.
That the right man had been found was evident from the first. "King Log
has made room for King Stork," wrote Oliver Wendell Holmes, then
professor of anatomy and physiology at Harvard, to John Motley. "Mr.
Eliot makes the corporation meet twice a month instead of once. He comes
to the meeting of every faculty, ours among the rest, and keeps us up to
eleven and twelve o'clock at night discussing new arrangements. I cannot
help being amused at some of the scenes we have in our medical
faculty--this cool, grave young man proposing in the calmest way to turn
everything topsy turvy, taking the reins into his hands and driving as
if he were the first man that ever sat on the box.
"'How is it, I should like to ask,' said one of our members, the other
day, 'that this faculty has gone on for eighty years managing its own
affairs and doing it well, and now within three or four months it is
proposed to change all our modes of carrying on the school? It seems
very extraordinary, and I should like to know how it happens.'
"'I can answer Dr. ----'s question very easily,' said the bland,
grave young man. 'There is a new president.'
"The tranquil assurance of this answer had an effect such as I hardly
ever knew produced by the most eloquent sentences I ever heard uttered."
The bland young man's innovations did not seem to do much harm to
Harvard, for under his administration, her financial resources have been
multiplied by ten, as has the number of her teachers, while the number
of her students has been multiplied by five. Dr. Eliot has grown into
the real head of the educational system of this country; his influence
has wrought vast changes in every department of teaching, from the
kindergarten to the university. It was his idea that common school
education and college education ought to be flexible, ought to be made
to fit the needs of the pupil. The result has been the broad development
of the elective system--broader than Josiah Quincy ever dreamed of. The
same system has changed the whole aspect of the teaching profession,
resulting in the demand for a competent training in some specialty for
every teacher.
Dr. Eliot, who is in a sense the first living citizen of America, has
not attained that position merely by success in his profession. He has
devoted time and thought to the great problems of our government, and
has taken an active part in many public movements--the race question,
the relations of capital and labor, the movement for universal
arbitration. He has been honored by France, by Italy, and by Japan, and
resigned from his great office, in 1909, at the age of seventy-five,
with mental and physical powers in splendid condition, not to retire
from active life, but to devote himself even more wholly to the service
of his countrymen. In this age of commercial domination, a career such
as Dr. Eliot's is more than usually inspiring.
In the history of the administration of Yale university, the most
striking personalities are the two Timothy Dwights and Noah Porter. The
first Timothy Dwight, born in 1752, and graduating from Yale at the age
of seventeen, began to teach, and at the outbreak of the Revolution,
enlisted as Chaplain in Parson's brigade of the Connecticut line. It was
at this time he wrote a number of stirring patriotic songs, one of
which, "Columbia," still lives. At the close of the war, he continued
preaching and also opened an academy, at which women were admitted to
the same courses with men, and which soon acquired considerable
reputation. In 1795, he was called to the presidency of Yale, a position
which he held until his death. His administration marked the beginning
of a new era in the history of the college. At his accession, the
college had about one hundred students, and the instructors consisted of
the president, one professor and three tutors. He established permanent
professorships and chose such men to fill them as Jeremiah Day, Benjamin
Silliman, and James Kingsley. The result of this policy was a steady
growth in the number of students, until, at his death, they had
increased to over three hundred.
Noah Porter, who came to the presidency in 1871, had been graduated
from the college forty years before, during which time he had studied
theology, held a number of important charges, was called to the chair of
moral philosophy at Yale, and finally elevated to the presidency. His
work was most important, one feature of it being the introduction of
elective studies, though he insisted also upon a required course, as
opposed to the Harvard system. Some of the University's finest buildings
were erected during his administration, and at its close the student
body numbered nearly eleven hundred.
He was succeeded in 1886 by Timothy Dwight, grandson of the elder
president Dwight, who, for many years has been closely associated with
the University, its financial growth being largely due to his efforts.
Under his management the growth of the institution was unprecedented,
the number of students increasing nearly fifty per cent within five
years. He was also prominently identified with the general educational
movement throughout the country, and his "True Ideal of an American
University," published in 1872, attracted much attention.
Princeton has also had its share of eminent men, among them Jonathan
Edwards, John Witherspoon, and James McCosh. Jonathan Edwards was one of
the most remarkable characters in American history. Born in 1703, he was
the fifth of eleven children and the only son. As a mere child, he
developed uncommon qualities, entered Yale College at the age of twelve
and graduated at the age of seventeen. His father was a clergyman, and
the boy had been brought up in a household and community intensely
religious, so that he very early began to have "a variety of concerns
and exercises about his soul." It was inevitable, of course, that he
should become a minister, and, at the age of nineteen, was ordained and
began to preach at a small church in New York City. Edwards seems to
have been afflicted from the first with what is in these days
irreverently called an in-growing conscience, and early formulated for
himself a set of seventy resolutions of the most exalted nature, which,
however praiseworthy in themselves, were too high and good for human
nature's daily food, and must have made him a most uncomfortable person
to live with. He developed, however, into a powerful preacher, and his
services were much sought, especially at revivals. One of his sermons,
called "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," is said to have created a
profound impression wherever delivered.
A difference with his congregation at Northampton caused him to resign
his pastorate there, and, declining a number of calls to established
parishes, he went as a missionary to the Housatonick Indians, at so
small an income that his wife and daughters were forced to labor with
the needle to support the family. It was while engaged in this work,
that an unexpected call came to him to take the presidency of Princeton.
He accepted and was installed as president early in 1758. At once he
began a series of reforms in the college administration, but an epidemic
of small-pox broke out in the neighborhood, and Edwards, exposing
himself to it fearlessly, contracted the disease and died thirty-four
days after his installation.
Jonathan Edwards probably came as near to the old idea of a saint as
America ever produced. Self-denying, stern, of an exalted piety, and
intensely religious, he lived in a world of his own, and was regarded
with no little awe and trembling. That he was a power for good cannot be
doubted, and his sermons are still read, where those of his
contemporaries have long since been forgotten.
Much more important to Princeton, was John Witherspoon, who came to the
presidency in 1768, after a distinguished career in Scotland, one of the
incidents of which was being taken a prisoner while incautiously
watching the battle of Falkirk. He never wholly recovered from the
effects of the imprisonment which followed. He brought with him from
Scotland a valuable library which he gave to the college, and, finding
the college treasury empty, he undertook a vigorous campaign to
replenish it, making a tour of New England, and even extending his quest
as far as Jamaica and the West Indies. Through his administrative
ability and the changes and additions which he made in the course of
study, the college received a great impetus.
The service to his adopted country by which Witherspoon will be longest
remembered, was the course he followed at the beginning of the
Revolution. From the first, he took the side of the colonies, and by
precept and example, held not only the great body of Presbyterians true
to that cause, but also the Scotch and Scotch-Irish, who were naturally
Tories by sympathy. He was a member of the Continental Congress, urged
ceaselessly the passage of the Declaration of Independence, was one of
its signers, and as a member of succeeding Congresses, distinguished
himself by his services. After the close of the war, he returned to
Princeton and devoted the remainder of his life to its administration.
Greatest of the three as an educator was James McCosh. A Scotchman, like
Witherspoon, a student of the Universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, a
pupil of Thomas Chalmers, he was ordained to the ministry in 1835, and
was a leading spirit in the movement which culminated in the
establishment of the Free Church of Scotland. His publications on
philosophical subjects brought him the appointment as professor of logic
and metaphysics in Queen's College, Belfast, where he remained for
sixteen years, drawing to the college a large body of students, and
publishing other philosophical works of the first importance. In 1868,
he was chosen president of Princeton, and his administration, lasting
for nearly a quarter of a century, was remarkably successful. Under him,
the student attendance nearly doubled, the teaching staff was more than
doubled, and the resources of the college enormously increased. During
these years, too, he continued his philosophical work, publishing a
series of volumes which are the most noteworthy of their kind ever
produced in America.
The temptation is great to dwell upon other educators connected with the
great universities: Ira Remsen, and his contributions to chemistry;
David Starr Jordan, and his great work on American fishes; Woodrow
Wilson, and his contributions to the study of American history; Jacob
Gould Schurman, and his work in the field of ethics;--to mention only a
few of them--but there is not space to do so here. However, this chapter
cannot be closed without some reference to the career of a remarkable
woman, an educator in the truest sense, whose influence for good can
hardly be estimated--Jane Addams.
John Burns, the English cabinet minister and labor leader, has called
her "the only saint America has produced." Her sainthood is of the
modern kind, which devotes itself by practical work to the alleviation
of suffering and the uplifting of humanity, as opposed to the old
fashioned kind of which we were speaking a moment ago in connection with
Jonathan Edwards.
Graduating at Rockford College, in 1881, Miss Addams, then a delicate
girl, spent two years in Europe. The sight which impressed her most, and
which, to a large extent, determined her future career, was that of Mile
End Road, the most crowded and squalid district of London, where she
beheld a dirty and destitute mob quarreling over food unfit to eat. This
vision of squalor and sin never left her, and the result was the
establishment, in 1889, of the Social Settlement of Hull House, in the
slums of Chicago. For Miss Addams had come to the conclusion that the
only way to reach the destitute and despairing was to dwell among them.
How right she was has been abundantly proved by the splendid work Hull
House has done. Its object, as stated in its charter, is "to provide a
center for a higher civic and social life; to institute and maintain
educational and philanthropic enterprises, and to investigate and
improve the conditions in the industrial districts of Chicago." All that
it has done, and much more; for it has been a beacon light of progress,
pointing the way for like undertakings elsewhere. But most valuable of
all has been Miss Addams's personal influence, the inspiration which her
life has been to workers everywhere for social betterment, and the
message which, by tongue and pen, she has given to the world. As an
example of a useful, devoted and well-rounded life, hers stands unique
in America to-day.
SUMMARY
AUDUBON, JOHN JAMES. Born near New Orleans, May 4, 1780; published
"Birds of America," 1830-39; "Ornithological Biography," 1831-39;
"Quadrupeds of America," 1846-54; died at New York City, January 27,
1851.
AGASSIZ, JEAN LOUIS RUDOLPHE. Born at Motier, canton of Fribourg,
Switzerland, May 28, 1807; professor of natural history at Neuchatel,
1832; studied Aar glacier, 1840-41; came to United States, 1846;
professor of zooelogy and geology at Cambridge, 1848; curator of
Cambridge Museum of Comparative Zooelogy, 1859; travelled in Brazil,
1865-66; around Cape Horn, 1871-72; died at Cambridge, Massachusetts,
December 14, 1873.
AGASSIZ, ALEXANDER. Born at Neuchatel, Switzerland, December 17, 1835;
came to United States, 1849; graduated at Harvard, 1855; developed Lake
Superior copper mines, 1865-69; curator of Cambridge Museum of
Comparative Zooelogy, 1874-85; died at sea, March 29, 1910.
GRAY, ASA. Born at Paris, Oneida County, New York, November 18, 1810;
professor of natural history at Harvard, 1842-88; died at Cambridge,
Massachusetts, January 30, 1888.
TORREY, JOHN. Born at New York City, August 15, 1796; professor at
Princeton and in College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York; State
Geologist of New York; United States assayer; died at New York, March
10, 1873.
DRAPER, JOHN WILLIAM. Born at St. Helena, near Liverpool, England, May
5, 1811; came to America, 1832; professor of chemistry University of New
York, 1839; president of the Medical College, 1850-73; died at
Hastings-on-the-Hudson, New York, January 4, 1882.
RUTHERFORD, LEWIS MORRIS. Born at Morrisania, New York, November 25,
1816; graduated at Williams College, 1834; admitted to bar, 1839;
abandoned law to devote himself to study of physics, 1849; died at
Tranquillity, New Jersey, May 30, 1892.
YOUNG, CHARLES AUGUSTUS. Born at Hanover, New Hampshire, December 15,
1834; graduated at Dartmouth, 1858; professor of astronomy at Princeton,
1877-1905; died at Hanover, New Hampshire, January 4, 1908.
LANGLEY, SAMUEL PIERPONT. Born at Roxbury, Boston, August 22, 1834;
secretary Smithsonian Institution, 1887-1908.
NEWCOMB, SIMON. Born at Wallace, Nova Scotia, March 12, 1835; came to
United States, 1853; graduated Lawrence Scientific School, 1858;
professor of Mathematics, U. S. navy, 1861; director Nautical Almanac
office, 1877-97; professor mathematics and astronomy Johns Hopkins
University, 1884-94; died at Washington, July 11, 1909.
PICKERING, EDWARD CHARLES. Born at Boston, July 19, 1846; graduated
Lawrence Scientific School, 1865; professor of astronomy and director of
Harvard Observatory since 1877.
MARSH, OTHNIEL CHARLES. Born at Lockport, New York, October 29, 1831;
professor paleontology Yale University, 1866, to death at New Haven,
March 18, 1899.
COPE, EDWARD DRINKER. Born at Philadelphia, July 28, 1840; professor of
natural sciences, Haverford College, 1864-67; paleontologist to United
States Geological Survey, 1868 to death at Philadelphia, April 12, 1897.
SILLIMAN, BENJAMIN. Born at North Stratford, Connecticut, August 8,
1779; graduated at Yale, 1796; tutor there, 1799, and professor, 1802;
professor emeritus, 1853; died at New Haven, Connecticut, November 24,
1864.
DANA, JAMES DWIGHT. Born at Utica, New York, February 12, 1813;
graduated at Yale, 1833; assistant to Professor Silliman, 1836-38;
professor of geology and natural history, 1850-64; died at New Haven,
April 14, 1895.
NEWBERRY, JOHN STRONG. Born at Windsor, Connecticut, December 22, 1822;
professor of geology at school of mines, Columbia College, 1866-90;
state geologist of Ohio, 1869; died at New Haven, Connecticut, December
7, 1892.
WHITNEY, JOSIAH DWIGHT. Born at Northampton, Massachusetts, November 23,
1819; graduated at Yale, 1839; geologist with New Hampshire survey,
1840-42; Lake Superior, 1847-49; state chemist of Iowa, 1855; state
geologist of California, 1860-74; professor of geology at Harvard, 1865
to death at Lake Sunapee, New Hampshire, August 18, 1896.
HITCHCOCK, EDWARD. Born at Deerfield, Massachusetts, May 24, 1793;
professor of chemistry, Amherst College, 1825; president of the college,
1845-54; died at Amherst, Massachusetts, February 27, 1864.
MOTT, VALENTINE. Born at Glen Cove, Long Island, August 20, 1785;
graduated Columbia College, 1806; professor of surgery at Columbia,
1810-35; died at New York City, April 26, 1865.
LONG, CRAWFORD W. Born at Danielsville, Georgia, November 1, 1815;
graduated medical department University of Pennsylvania, 1839; died at
Athens, Georgia, June 16, 1878.
MORTON, WILLIAM THOMAS GREEN. Born at Charlton, Massachusetts, August
19, 1819; practised dentistry at Boston, 1841-58; discovered anaesthetic
properties of ether, 1864; died in New York City, July 15, 1868.
HENRY, JOSEPH. Born at Albany, New York, December 17, 1797; professor of
natural philosophy at Princeton, 1832-46; first secretary of Smithsonian
Institution, 1846; died at Washington, May 13, 1878.
GUYOT, ARNOLD HENRY. Born near Neuchatel, Switzerland, September 28,
1807; came to America, 1847; professor of physical geography and geology
at Princeton, 1855; died at Princeton, February 8, 1884.
LE CONTE, JOHN. Born in Liberty County, Georgia, December 4, 1818;
professor of physics University of California, 1869, to death at
Berkeley, California, April 29, 1891.
LE CONTE, JOSEPH. Born in Liberty County, Georgia, February 26, 1823;
professor of geology, University of California, 1869; died in Yosemite
Valley, California, July 6, 1901.
LE CONTE, JOHN LAWRENCE. Born at New York City, May 13, 1825; surgeon of
volunteers during Civil War, and chief clerk of mint at Philadelphia
from 1878 until his death there, November 15, 1883.
SHALER, NATHANIEL SOUTHGATE. Born at Newport, Kentucky, February 22,
1841; graduated Lawrence Scientific School, 1862; professor paleontology
at Harvard, 1868-87; professor of geology, 1887, to death, April 11,
1906.
MANN, HORACE. Born at Franklin, Massachusetts, May 7, 1796; admitted to
the bar, 1823; secretary of Massachusetts Board of Education, 1837-48;
member of Congress, 1848-53; president of Antioch College, 1852-59;
died at Yellow Springs, Ohio, August 2, 1859.
QUINCY, JOSIAH. Born at Boston, February 4, 1772; member of Congress,
1805-13; mayor of Boston, 1823-28; president of Harvard, 1829-45; died
at Quincy, Massachusetts, July 1, 1864.
ELIOT, CHARLES WILLIAM. Born at Boston, March 20, 1834; graduated from
Harvard, 1853; taught mathematics and chemistry in Lawrence Scientific
School, 1858-69; president of Harvard, 1869-1909.
DWIGHT, TIMOTHY. Born at Northampton, Massachusetts, May 14, 1752;
graduated from Yale, 1769; president of Yale, 1795-1817; died at New
Haven, Connecticut, January 11, 1817.
PORTER, NOAH. Born at Farmington, Connecticut, December 14, 1811;
graduated at Yale, 1831; tutor at Yale, 1833-35; pastor of
Congregational churches at New Milford, Connecticut, and Springfield,
Massachusetts, 1836-46; professor of metaphysics at Yale, 1846-71;
president of Yale, 1871-86; died at New Haven, March 4, 1892.
DWIGHT, TIMOTHY. Born at Norwich, Connecticut, November 16, 1828;
graduated at Yale, 1849; studied divinity, 1851-55; professor of sacred
literature, 1858; president of Yale, 1886-98.
EDWARDS, JONATHAN. Born at East Windsor, Connecticut, October 5, 1703;
pastor of Congregational Church, Northampton, Massachusetts, 1727-50;
missionary to the Indians, 1751-58; president of Princeton College,
1758; died at Princeton, March 22, 1758.
WITHERSPOON, JOHN. Born in Haddingtonshire, Scotland, February 5, 1722;
president of Princeton, 1768; delegate to Continental Congress, 1774-75;
died near Princeton, September 15, 1794.
MCCOSH, JAMES. Born at Carskeoch, Ayrshire, Scotland, April 1, 1811;
president of Princeton, 1868-88; died at Princeton, November 16, 1894.
ADDAMS, JANE. Born at Cedarville, Illinois, 1860; graduated Rockford
College, 1881; opened Hull House, 1889.