52-4 EPHRAIM WHITMAN GURNEY. 



the autumn after his graduation, and he remained in Boston for sev- 

 eral years, for a time engaged as a teacher in a private school, but 

 steadily carrying on, as it were in silence, the broad system of study 

 and intellectual training, in which his unusual mental maturity and 

 independence made him a sufficient guide for himself. 



In 1859 he was appointed Tutor in Latin in Harvard College, and 

 with some difficulty was iuduced to enter upon the university career, 

 for which he then doubted his own fitness. In 1863 he became 

 Assistant Professor of Latin ; in 1867, Assistant Professor of Philos- 

 ophy ; in 1868, Assistant Professor of History ; and in 1869, early in 

 the administration of President Eliot, he was made University Pro- 

 fessor of History, and, a few months later, Dean of the College Fac- 

 ulty. The last-named position he held for six years, in a period of 

 rapid reorganization and development. The University Professorship 

 he continued to hold until May, 1886, when, upon the resignation of 

 Professor Torrey, he became McLean Professor of History. The 

 brief but important record is closed by his death at Beverly, on the 

 12th of September, 1886, after a wasting illness of several months. 

 He had been a Fellow of the Corporation of Harvard College from 

 1884, and of this Academy from 1860. 



As a Fellow of the Academy, Professor Gurney is enrolled in the 

 section of Philosophy and Archteology ; but the studies which gave 

 him this place were after all but a part of the preparation with which 

 he subsequently entered upon the field of history, in which lay his 

 chief interests. Roman history in its widest relations, the growth of 

 the Roman domestic and political institutions and their influence in 

 shaping the social, political, and legal systems of modern Europe, were 

 the subjects to which all. his work seemed to converge, and to the 

 development of which he brought to bear such wealth and variety of 

 attainment as is faintly indicated by his record as an instructor in 

 Harvard College. The classics both Latin and Greek, of which he 

 seemed in the earlier years to be the special student, were the key 

 to his wider inquiry. For its better prosecution, he made himself 

 master of Roman law, secured its introduction among the College 

 studies, and himself gave instruction in it. Even his short service as 

 a Professor of Philosophy was also no real deviation from the general 

 line of his activity. Of the few examples of his work to be found in 

 print, the most remarkable is the letter given at the close of Professor 

 Thayer's " Letters of Chauncey Wripht," in which Professor Gurney 

 with wonderful discrimination and felicity of style presents the intel- 

 lectual lineaments of that rare thinker. And nothing is more striking 



