EPHRAIM WHITMAN GURNEY. 527 



It was clearly foreseen from the outset, and by none more clearly 

 than by Professor Gurney, that the development of the University 

 system and the great increase in the number of students would require 

 a complete change of relations between the governing body and the 

 mass of young men under its charge, the relaxation of old methods of 

 discipline and the dependence henceforth upon influence rather than 

 constraint ; and it devolved upon him as Dean of the College Faculty 

 to take, during the critical years, a most important share in the task 

 of establishing a new tradition. His qualifications for this undertak- 

 ing were unique. From the date of his appointment as Tutor, his 

 interest in students as individuals, the ease with which he acquired 

 and returned their friendship, his sincere sympathy with misfortune, 

 his patience with failure, and his charity for all short-comings, had 

 made him to a remarkable extent the unofficial counsellor of a long 

 succession of undergraduates, of every possible variety of moral, intel- 

 lectual, or social quality. To the office of Dean he brought the same 

 capacity for personal attachment and the same ready sympathy, facul- 

 ties long trained to the perception of character, and a rich store of the 

 matured and cheerful counsel of the man of the world. The influence 

 thus gained was never chilled by any feeling of disparity in years, or 

 purposes, or pursuits. It was strengthened by the sense of sure reli- 

 ance upon a judgment which never failed to hoid its balance undis- 

 turbed, and by the charm of a sweet and serene nature. And this 

 kindly authority over students, together with the weight of his advice 

 and example among his colleagues, may be said to have carried the 

 disciplinary administration' of the College safely through a period in 

 which it might easily have been wrecked, either by a narrower man, 

 or by one of less steady policy. 



Professor Gurney's knowledge of the world was a knowledge both 

 of affairs and of men. No event, social, political, or financial, was 

 indifferent to him or beyond his appreciation. To his colleagues, 

 therefore, the gratifying and unusual choice which made him, while a 

 Professor, also a Fellow of Harvard College, seemed the natural 

 recognition of a life devoted to that institution, and of rare capacities 

 for its service. Closing a career which leaves so little written evi- 

 dence of that which makes it memorable for his contemporaries, this 

 distinction is a lasting memorial of him, placed in the University of 

 which he was a builder. 



