SKETCH OF GEORGE JARVIS BRUSH. 119 



ing college sentiment reflected the views and feelings of the past, and 

 very little those of the present ; it did not begin to have even a concep- 

 tion of what was in store in the future. The student might or might 

 not learn Latin and Greek ; but, whichever was the case, he left the 

 institution with a profound respect for them both, and usually the de- 

 gree of his respect was fairly proportioned to the degree of his igno- 

 rance. It was not at all so in the case of the natural sciences, in spite 

 of the eminence of some of its professors. Nor in the academic body 

 as a whole was there then the least comprehension of what may be 

 termed the solidarity of studies that community of honor and dis- 

 honor in which they share, which renders it impossible for any one of 

 them to be unduly depreciated without having some injurious effect 

 upon the development of all the rest. 



Still, the necessity of doing something more than had been done 

 was beginning to be felt ; and in a feeble way efforts were put forth to 

 prepare for what the blindest could not fail to see was the inevitable. 

 In 1854 an attempt was made at organization. The scattered in- 

 struction given by individual professors was brought together in the 

 catalogue, though nowhere else ; and an institution under the some- 

 what imposing name of the Yale Scientific School existed at least on 

 paper. There was then no money with which to endow it ; it is safe 

 to say that, had there been, none would have been voted. But in one 

 respect the corporation did a service to the new department they had 

 created greater than could have been rendered by any pecuniary assist- 

 ance that lay in their power. At the commencement of 1855 they 

 elected Mr. Brush to a professorship. 



He was first offered the chair of mining and metallurgy ; but this 

 he declined as embracing too much, and the title was limited to that 

 of metallurgy alone. This, several years after, was exchanged for 

 that of mineralogy. To qualify himself still further for the position, 

 the newly-elected Professor went, in the autumn of 1855, to London, 

 where he pursued his studies in the Royal School of Mines. The fol- 

 lowing year he made an extended tour through the mines and smelt- 

 ing-works of England, Scotland, Wales, Belgium, Germany, and 

 Austria. In December, 1856, he returned to this country, and, in 

 January, 1857, he entered upon the duties of his professorship. 



From this time on the history of Professor Brush has been the his- 

 tory of the special scientific department of Yale College, which, in 

 1860, owing to the liberal benefactions of Mr. Joseph E. Sheffield, 

 received the name of the Sheffield Scientific School. He came to it 

 while it was not only without reputation, but without appreciation or 

 expectation. He came to it while it was poor beyond even that de- 

 cent poverty which apparently belongs, in the nature of things, to 

 institutions of learning while it was in a state so unorganized that as 

 a whole it could hardly be said to have a being at all. It exhibited, 

 indeed, a good deal of life in the college catalogue, but beyond that 



