FRIEDRICH KOHLRAUSCH. 839 



"Duty, stern daughter of the voice of God." But to him the paths 

 of duty were also ways of pleasantness. For it was a supreme delight 

 to him to see his pupils and associates and colleagues become men of 

 distinguished usefulness to their fellow-men. It was, I believe, one of 

 the greatest secrets of his success as president of the university that 

 he made his associates feel sure that he took a genuine and sym- 

 pathetic interest in what they were doing. He was wont to quote 

 Emerson's saying, "Nothing great was ever achieved without en- 

 thusiasm." With Mr. Gilman, enthusiasm was a divine gift, and 

 from his living flame he was able to kindle the sacred torch in the 

 hand of others. The belief that " the things which are not seen are 

 eternal" was part of his very life, and sustained his courage in the 

 absence of showy results for which many were hoping. To few lives 

 do the words of St. Paul at Antioch more fitly apply: He "fell on 

 sleep, after he had served his own generation by the will of God." 



Charles R. Lanman. 



FRIEDRICH KOHLRAUSCH (1840-1910) 



Foreign Honorary Member in Class I, Section 2, 1900. 



Friedrich Kohlrausch was born in Rinteln, Oct. 14, 1840, and died 

 in Marburg, Jan. 17, 1910. 



There is a commonly accepted belief that successive generations 

 of the same family do not attain great distinction. To this the family 

 of Kohlrausch is an exception. Rudolf Kohlrausch, the father of 

 Friedrich, was a distinguished physicist and professor in the Univer- 

 sity of Gottingen, well known because of his determination, with 

 Wilhelm Weber, of the relation between the electrostatic and electro- 

 magnetic unit of current, which forms one of the great landmarks in 

 the history of our science. His grandfather, it may be noted, was a 

 historian, also of national reputation, whose history of Germany, in 

 two volumes, ran through sLxteen editions at a time when such occur- 

 rences were less common than now. 



The father died when the son was but eighteen (1858), leaving 

 Friedrich to pursue his studies alone. He obtained his doctor's 

 degree at Gottingen with his father's colleague, Weber, in 1863, and 



