228 BIOLOGY AND ITS MAKERS 



1 85 1. During his days of preparation for the university he 

 was a good student, but did not exhibit in any marked way 

 the powers for which later he became distinguished. At 

 Cambridge, his distinguished teacher, the late Sir Michael 

 Foster, recognized his great talents, and encouraged him to 

 begin work in embryology. His labors in this field once 

 begun, he threw himself into it with great intensity. He rose 

 rapidly to a professorship in Cambridge, and so great was 

 his enthusiasm and earnestness as a lecturer that in seven 

 years '' voluntary attendance on his classes advanced from 

 ten to ninety." He was also a stimulator of research, and at 

 the tin\e of his death there were twenty students engaged in 

 his laboratory on problems of development. 



He was distinguished for personal attractiveness, and 

 those who met him were impressed with his great sincerity, 

 as well as his personal charm. He was welcomed as an 

 addition to the select group of distinguished scientific men of 

 England, and a great career was predicted for him. Huxley, 

 when he felt the call, at a great personal sacrifice, to lay aside 

 the more rigorous pursuits of scientific research, and to devote 

 himself to molding science into the lives of the people, said 

 of Balfour: "He is the only man who can carry out my 

 work." 



His Tragic Fate. — But that was not destined to be. The 

 story of his tragic end need be only referred to. After com- 

 pleting the prodigious labor or, the Comparative Embry- 

 ology he went to Switzerland for recuperation, and met his 

 death, with that of his guide, by slipping from an Alpine 

 height into a chasm. His death occurred in July, 1882. 



The memorial edition of his works fills four quarto vol- 

 umes, but the "Comparative Embryology" is Balfour's 

 monument, and will give him enduring fame. It is not only 

 a digest of the work of others, but contains also general 

 considerations of a far-seeing quality. He saw develop- 



