530 WILLIAM RIPLEY NICHOLS. 



In 1870, Mr. Nichols was appointed Professor of General Chemistry 

 in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and it was in this posi- 

 tion that the remainder of his life was passed. It is but simple truth 

 to say that through unflagging devotion to the interests of this pro- 

 fessorship Nichols worked iiimself to death. The only wonder is that 

 he held out to work so long. From the first moment of his connection 

 as a student with the Institute, he had clearly recognized the meaning 

 and significance of the new educational movement to which this school 

 gave expression, and from that time forth he labored for it without 

 haste and without rest. Doubtless it was because he wished to see 

 the new ideas nurtured in a virgin soil that he declined President 

 Eliot's invitation to occupy a chemical chair at Cambridge. In the 

 same spirit, he refused, long afterwards, to listen to the proposition 

 that he should accept a professorship in the University of Virginia. 



During many years so much of Professor Nichols's time was occu- 

 pied by his duties as a teacher that his continual scientific produc- 

 tiveness seems wellnigh incredible. Nothing but a most exceptional 

 intelligence and an abounding store of innate strength can explain his 

 remarkable capacity for turning off work, and account for the results of 

 his most useful life. Taken separately, either the work he accomplished 

 in the class-room, or the laborious investigations which were conducted 

 in his laboratory would be quite beyond the powers of most men. He 

 was imbued withal with a deep religious feeling, and was an active 

 participant in the work of his church and of its Sunday school. 



An acute attack of pleurisy in June, 1881, left him physically speak- 

 ing a mere wreck ; but his indomitable spirit seemed to burn only the 

 more brightly through suffering. During five long years he struggled, 

 with characteristic energy, perseverance, and good judgment, to regain 

 his health and complete his work, but in vain. 



In respect to Professor Nichols's contributions to questions of sani- 

 tation, — which at the first glance might perhaps be thought of as 

 largely technical, — it is to be noted that they were always conceived 

 in a thoroughly scientific spirit. No suspicion of venality, or flavor 

 even as of affairs commercial, mercantile, or litigious, will ever be 

 found attached to any statement of his. He was wholly free from 

 a certain tendency to strive for triumph rather than for truth, which 

 has sometimes been supposed to be part and parcel of an " expert's " 

 life, and which is undoubtedly apt to mar the statements of public 

 analysts, and to detract from the respect and esteem in which members 

 of the profession might well be held by the community at large. 



There is no room for doubting that Professor Nichols did earnestly 



