12 William Keith Brooks 



was known that Brooks was to give a paper, it was a 

 custom for men in all the graduate departments to attend 

 the meeting, so much did they appreciate the charm and 

 clearness with which he could present the problems of 

 his subject. I recall also that one of my colleagues in the 

 medical department dates his determination to enter upon 

 o biological career from a lecture that was given by 

 Dr. Brooks. To him that lecture had the seductiveness of 

 the music of the piper of Hamelin it made him see the 

 blue waters and smell the salt air of the ocean. 



In many ways it seemed to me a great pity that, in the 

 organization of the courses in the biological department, 

 Dr. Brooks was not brought more into contact with the 

 beginning students; his talents for exposition and his 

 great breadth of scientific vision would have had such a 

 stimulating and elevating influence. Doubtless this 

 kind of work was in the nature of the case more or less 

 impossible for him: his more serious mission was, of 

 course, with his special students, and the necessity that 

 he was under of leading a restrained and quiet life from 

 a physical standpoint limited greatly the extent of his 

 active work in teaching. 



Upon has advanced students Dr. Brooks exercised with- 

 out doubt a strong and enduring influence, which they 

 hasten to acknowledge gratefully on every occasion. The 

 means by which he exerted this influence I do not feel 

 capable of analyzing satisfactorily. He paid very little 

 attention to his men in their daily work, and difficulties of 

 technique interested him perhaps not at all. I feel quite 

 sure that, in many cases, the routine work for the Ph. D. 

 degree was accomplished with but little direct supervision 

 on his part. Yet, so far as I know, none of the numerous 

 men who were trained in his laboratory and who now 

 occupy important chairs in the subject in other colleges, 

 fail to attribute to him a great influence for good upon 

 their intellectual development. I assume that this influ- 

 ence was due in part to the simple truthfulness of Ms 



