548 SAMUEL CABOT. 



a large family. In fact, it was characteristic of Dr. Cabot that even to 

 the day of his death he remained an uncompromising opponent to the 

 high charges for surgical work which had already appeared. But if 

 the life was simple, it was very full and happy ; the family circle was 

 bound together by a warm, almost passionate affection, and was sur- 

 rounded by troops of friends both in Boston and in the country. All 

 the burning questions of the day were discussed continually with great 

 energy by the brothers and sisters, each one of whom was thoroughly 

 convinced of the truth of his or her opinion and never backward in 

 proclaiming it. The home atmosphere was therefore stimulating, both 

 morally and mentally. 



He was educated in the public schools, finally at the Boston Latin 

 School, from which he graduated in 1866. Here he proved himself a 

 painstaking but not brilliant scholar, as, like so many healthy boys, 

 his interests were in athletic sports, especially baseball and football, 

 rather than in his books. 



On leaving the Latin School he was naturally attracted by the Mas- 

 sachusetts Institute of Technology, then in its infancy, since he in- 

 herited strong scientific tastes from his father, who was an excellent 

 ornithologist and in his younger days had made scientific journeys. 

 It is probable, however, that the impulse to chemistry came from the 

 Jacksons, as his contemporaries in this family included nine profes- 

 sional chemists divided among three branches of the family, which had 

 separated in the seventeenth century. If this does not indicate a 

 strong family taste for chemistry, but is a mere coincidence, it is cer- 

 tainly a strange one, as chemistry is distinctly an unusual profession. 

 Accordingly he entered the Institute in the third class received by it, 

 and devoted his attention to chemistry principally under the direction 

 of Professor F. H. Storer. 



In 1870 he became chemist of the Merrimack Print Works at Lowell, 

 and, while holding this position, introduced successfully a process for 

 recovering alizarine from the spent residues of the madder root by the 

 use of sulphuric acid, which was new to this country, — a remarkable 

 achievement for a young man of twenty-two. It is striking to note 

 that even as a beginner he was not content with the mere routine work 

 of his position, but entered at once the field in which he was destined 

 to reap such abundant harvests, for his principal merit lies in making 

 effective, on a commercial scale, new processes, whether of his own in- 

 vention or foreign ones as yet unknown in America. This adaptation 

 of foreign processes is not by any means the simple matter which it 

 might appear at first sight; great judgment is necessary in selecting 

 the one best fitted to the needs of this country, and, after this is done. 



