academy 0F sciences] ANCESTEY AND YOUTH 5 



FOUR YEARS AT COLLEGE 



Karl was the only one of the Gilbert family who attended the University of Rochester 

 and gained a college degree; and this was at the cost of difficulty and sacrifice on the part of 

 his father and himself. Regular outdoor exercise was a condition of the opportunity. The 

 youth sometimes had to go shabbily dressed and was too much occupied to join freely in the 

 social life of his companions; but his bravery and steadiness of character were such that he 

 never appeared to be unhappy in consequence of these restrictions. Among his trials was a 

 pair of light blue trousers which a tall friend of his father's had made the mistake of buying, 

 and which when still in good condition were passed on to the tall boy; so good was their quality 

 that they lasted undesirably long. 



As elective studies were practically unknown when young Gilbert went to college, he took 

 a prescribed classical course, and received the degree of A. B. in 1862, at the age of 19. His 

 standing was always good, but he was indifferent to college honors; and in this respect the 

 youth foreshadowed the man. The 36 units of his college studies included 8 of mathematics, 

 6 of Latin, and 7 of Greek, both the ancient languages being continued into the senior year. 

 Rhetoric, logic, and zoology had 2 units each, and nine other subjects, including French, Ger- 

 man, and geology, but 1 each. He contributed rhymed skits to a college paper, and always 

 afterwards enjoyed composing verses, more or less humorous, on current or local events. During 

 part of his senior year he was president of the Delphic Society, one of the two literary societies 

 of the college, and he was awarded the Greek oration on graduating. The extended training 

 in mathematics, for which young Gilbert had a natural capacity, served him well in geophysical 

 researches of later years; perhaps his classical studies contributed to the clear style for which 

 his geological reports were famous; they seem also to have determined a tendency to the use 

 of long words of Greek origin and occasionally to the invention of such words, but they did 

 not prevent his later approval of "simplified spelling," which in his case as in so many others 

 was evidently a matter of unconventional temperament,, and not of either ignorance or learning. 



Gilbert's college teacher in zoology and geology was Henry A. Ward, who came to be widely 

 known for his extensive dealings in natural history specimens, to which he later gave his whole 

 time, as is further told below in the account of " Cosmos Hall." A first acquaintance with 

 geology was thus gained, but unless by the rule of contraries it can not have been the influence 

 of this enthusiastic collector, whose lectures must have been of a matter-of-fact rather than of 

 a philosophical nature, which led Gilbert to say in an address, 20 years later, that the im- 

 portant thing is to train scientists rather than to teach science, and that the " practical questions 

 for the teacher are, whether it is possible by training to improve the guessing faculty, and if 

 so, how it is to be done;" thus implying not so much that, in his own experience, accurate 

 observation is easy, but that successful guessing is difficult. It must also have been not his 

 professor's idea but Gilbert's, prompted perhaps by a remembrance of an over-insistence on 

 the names of things, that the content of a subject is often presented so abundantly in college 

 teaching as to obstruct the communication of its essence, and that the teacher "will do better 

 to contract the phenomenal and to enlarge the logical side of his subject, so as to dwell on the 

 philosophy of the science rather than on its material." 1 



A BRIEF EXPERIENCE IN SCHOOL-TEACHING 



On finishing his college course without developing any decided bent toward a special 

 profession or occupation, and without physical strength enough to warrant his enlisting for 

 military duty in the War of the Rebellion— his name was twice in the draft fist, but not drawn 

 either time — yet having reached the pedagogically competent age of 19, young Gilbert tried 

 school-teaching at Jackson, Mich., not as the beginning of a life career, but, young American- 

 like, as a means of paying a debt contracted during his undergraduate years. A class photo- 

 graph at that time shows boyish undevelopment; the neck was overlong, the shaven chin was 

 heavy, almost uncouth; the mouth was not fully resolved; but the upper part of the face 



' The inculcation of scientific method by example. Presidential address, American Society of Naturalists. Amer. Journ. Sci., XXXI, 1886, 

 184-299. This address is analysed in a later section. 



