240 



THE ALUMNI JOURNAL. 



PROFESSOR HUXLEY. 



By the death of Professor Huxley the 

 world has lost a man whom it could ill 

 spare. He was one of the very few men 

 who unite to a real capacity for original 

 work, the impulse and the ability to bring 

 home the results of scientific research to 

 the popular mind. He believed that a 

 knowledge of science, and above all of 

 scientific method, was good for mankind ; 

 and he turned aside from studies in which 

 he had won renown , and might have won 

 more, in order that he might preach what 

 he considered the gospel of science to the 

 multitude. Some of his friends regretted 

 this ; in the interest of his fame they 

 would have preferred that he should 

 never have quitted the higher walks of 

 scientific investigation ; but for our own 

 part it seems to us impossible that Hux- 

 ley should have chosen his course other- 

 wise than as he did. He had what few 

 of the devotees of pure science possess, 

 strong popular sympathies, and an ex- 

 tremely active temperament. He could 

 not so immerse himself in the minutiae of 

 anatomy, or the obscurities of physio- 

 logical processes as to be indifferent to 

 what was going on in the world around 

 him. He was interested in fishes and 

 reptiles, but he was more interested in 

 his fellow-men ; and it would be difficult 

 to overestimate the value of the service 

 he rendered in promoting sound habits 

 of thought in this generation. Having 

 won complete intellectual emancipation 

 from himself he desired that others 

 should share the same benefit ; and 

 wherever the cause of intellectual liberty 

 seemed to be in danger, there he was 

 ready to come forward in its defense. 



No one could read a page of Professor 

 Huxley's writings without being struck 

 with the breadth of culture they dis- 

 played. He was not a university bred 

 man, and yet in his knowledge ot liter- 

 ature and philosophy — to say nothing of 



his strictly scientific attainments — he put 

 the vast majority of university men to 

 shame. His culture, however, was never 

 merely on exhibition as culture ; it was 

 employed in the most legitimate manner 

 to strengthen the causes he had at heart. 

 There was in him too broad a humanity 

 and too much of earnest purpose to per- 

 mit him to lapse into the arts of the rhet- 

 orician. Not often, indeed, has such a 

 combination of gifts been seen in one 

 writer ; and, now that he has gone from 

 us, it is a supreme satisfaction to reflect 

 how nobly these gifts were used, how 

 sincerely and courageously and untir- 

 ingly they were devoted to the good of 

 mankind. 



The world is poorer by the death of 

 Huxley ; but the greatest must pass, 

 sooner or later, from the stage of exist- 

 ence, and, as they pass, the lesson of 

 their lives comes out with greater dis- 

 tinctness. Of Huxley we may truly say 

 that he enriched the life of our time by 

 his thought and his example, and that 

 the forces which to day make for prog- 

 ress in the world are better organized for 

 victory, and move forward with steadier 

 hope, through the help and aspiration 

 which he afforded. — The Popidar Science 

 Monthly. 



A NEW HETHOD OF MAKING LANTERN 

 SLIDES. 



By EI. W. SCRIPTURE, Yale University. 



In lecturing on experimental psychol- 

 ogy I have found it useful to project on 

 the screen numerous views from the illus- 

 trations in my book, "Thinking, Feel- 

 ing, Doing." I prepared the slides at 

 considerable expense, in the usual way, 

 by photography, but it finally occurred 

 to me that it might be possible to print 

 directly on glass from the blocks used in 

 the book. 



The electrotypes were obtained and a 

 glass printer in a clock factory was found 

 to do the work. After several experi- 



