CHARLES OTIS WHITMAN. 877 



CHARLES OTIS WHITMAN (1843-1910) 



Fellow in Class II. Section 3, 1890. 



Charles Otis Whitman was born December 12th, 1843 ^ at Pinhook, 

 town of Woodstock, Maine, the son of Joseph and Marcia (Leonard) 

 Whitman. He early showed a love of natural history and was espe- 

 cially interested in birds. He graduated from Bowdoin College (B.A.) 

 July, 1868, having been obliged to teach meantime to secure funds for 

 his education. He was for four years principal of the Academy at 

 Westford, Massachusetts and, in September 1872, was appointed sub- 

 master at the English High School in Boston where his uncle, George 

 F. Leonard, had been for some years master. He came under the 

 influence of Louis Agassiz in 1873 and entered the laboratory at 

 Penikese. There he met Professor E. S. Morse who was struck by 

 his ability. He went to the Naples Laboratory and studied at Leipzig 

 under Leuckhart, graduating (Ph.D.) in 1878. His doctor's thesis 

 on "The Embryology of Clepsine" introduced new principles, as well 

 as facts, into embryological science, and was beautifully illustrated by 

 his own drawings. 



Returning to America he was invited in the summer of 1879 by 

 Professor Morse to take up the work Morse was laying down at the 

 Imperial L^niversity, Japan. Accordingly Professor Whitman taught 

 zoology at Tokyo until the summer of 1881. Here he trained four 

 investigators, all of whom became professors of zoology at the univer- 

 sity. Becoming estranged from the University officials because he 

 could not adapt himself to their ideas of official control of intellectual 

 property, he left Japan in August 1881. He went to Naples where he 

 studied from November, 1881 to May, 1882. Here he worked out 

 the embryology, life history and classification of Dicyemids, using the 

 newest methods of microscopical research. Returning to America 

 in the autumn of 1882 he was appointed Assistant in Zoology at the 

 Museum of Comparative Zoology of Harvard LTniversity. Here he 

 worked in cooperation with Alexander Agassiz on the development of 

 pelagic fish eggs. Two papers were published on this subject and his 

 own book on "IVIethods of Research in Microscopical Anatomy and 

 Embryology" appeared at this time. Whitman was put in charge 

 of a private laboratory for biology and related research, founded by 



2 The date December 14, 1842 is also given. 



