ARTUTR TRACY CABOT. 797 



modesty. He was influential in proeuring- the passage of the hill 

 requiring instruction in hygiene and preventive disea.se in the puhlic 

 schools. His counsel was sought by the General Electric Company 

 with regard to the safeguarding ami promoting the health of its 

 employees at Lynn and Pittsfield. So deeply did he become interested 

 in this line of work that in the spring of 1910 he retired from all practice 

 and its emoluments that he might husband his strength for public 

 work alone. 



During about thirty years he published oAcr one hundred and 

 twenty papers. The last is a plea for the preAcntion and treatment 

 of tuberculosis in childhood, to be found in the Atlantic Monthh/ for 

 November, 1912. He was a member of many medical societies and 

 of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 



This is a meagre account of his strictly professional actixnties. In 

 1896, as has been stated before, he was chosen a member of the Corpor- 

 ation of Harvard College, that small body of seven which fills its own 

 vacancies, has exclusive charge of the funds, the initiative in most 

 appointments, and may, in a way, be compared, as regards the govern- 

 ment of the University, to the Senate of the United States; though it 

 has more power, relatively, to that of the lower House — the Over- 

 seers. Membership in the Corporation is no sinecure. It involves a 

 deal of work. Questions large in variety and great in moment con- 

 stantly arise and demand careful, deliberate, ripe judgment. Nobody 

 in active professional or business life can accept the honor and the 

 ser\-ice without large sacrifice of time and strength; no physician 

 without also loss of income. After careful consideration he accepted 

 the election, and we saw the unprecedented occupation of two seats 

 on the Board by physicians. The part which he and Dr. Walcott have 

 taken in the marvelous development of the Medical School can be, in a 

 measure, appreciated by the most matter-of-fact. They were the 

 Building Committee on the part of the Corporation. 



Dr. Cabot's feeling and love for art, always keen and discriminating, 

 led to the Trusteeship in the Museum of Fine Arts in 1899. Here, 

 too, he was a worker. Everywhere and always the "good enough" 

 for him was nothing short of the best of which he was capable. In 

 social life he was more and more sought after. He had at times a 

 certain grimness of manner which could be raised to the nth power 

 by anything mean, petty or under-handed. This grimness concealed 

 more or less to the casual acquaintance the steady glow of one of the 

 warmest of hearts and the most lovable of natures; but abated, in a 

 measure, as he grew older. He was sympathetically receptive, and 



