THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. 



189 



THE PROGEESS OF SCIENCE. 



ROBERT HEXRY THURSTON. 



By tlie death of Professor R. H. 

 Thurston education and science suflfer 

 a serious loss. His activity was wide- 

 reaching and entirely beneficent. xVs 

 a physicist he was not the peer of 

 Gibbs and Rowland, but his work cov- 

 ered such a broad field and was so 

 large in quantity that the highest ex- 

 actness could scarcely be attained. 

 His special researches in thermody- 

 namics and their applications to the 

 steam-engine have given him an emi- 

 nent place among scientific men, while 

 his conduct of Sibley College has proved 

 him to be one of the educational lead- 

 ers of the country. While thus carry- 

 ing on the work of two men, he devoted 

 himself unsparingly to every good 

 cause. Innumerable demands on his 

 time and patience were met cheerfully 

 and helpfully. His death is a personal 

 loss to every one who knew him, and is 

 at the same time a public misfortune. 



Thurston was born at Providence, 

 U. I., on October 25, 1839. His death 

 from heart disease occurred with en- 

 tire suddenness on his sixty-fourth 

 birthday, while he Avas awaiting guests 

 whom he had invited to his house. He 

 was educatea at Brown University and 

 in his father's shops. At the outbreak 

 of the civil war he enlisted in the naval 

 engineer corps, and served with dis- 

 tinction. He was on the Monitor in its 

 famous engagement with the Merrimac 

 and later was first assistant in charge 

 of the ironclad Dictator. At the end 

 of the war he became professor of 

 natural philosophy in the U. S. Naval 

 Acaaemy, and in 1871 accepted the 

 chair of engineering in Stevens Insti- 

 tute of Technology. In 1885 he ac- 

 cepted a professorship in mechanical 

 engineering at Cornell University and 



the directorship of Sibley College. 

 Under him the college was organized 

 and, chiefly through his personal efforts 

 during the past eighteen years, it has 

 attained its present iireeminent posi- 

 tion. There are this year nearly a 

 thousand students in the college, and 

 its courses of study nave set standards 

 for other institutions. While thus en- 

 gaged in constant teaching and arduous 

 administrative work, Thurston was 

 equally occupied with investigation and 

 publication. He was the author of 

 eleven books and of some three hundred 

 papers. In tnis journal will be found 

 many of his more popular articles, and 

 in the present number we have the sad 

 privilege of publishing his last paper. 

 He was one of the editors of Science 

 and of Johnson's and Appleton's Cyclo- 

 paedias. He was constantly engaged on 

 committees and commissions, and took 

 an active part in scientific and educa- 

 tional societies. He was three times 

 president of the American Association 

 for the Advancement of Science and 

 was first president of the American 

 Society of Alechanical Engineers. 



INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION. 



Science and education have always 

 ignored the boundaries of nations and 

 liave been important factors in pro- 

 moting peace and good-will. It is a 

 most extraordinary fact that there 

 should have been 10,000 students from 

 all parts of Europe at Bologne in the 

 thirteenth century. The origin of the 

 words ■ university ' and ' college ' ap- 

 pears to have been in the separation 

 of the students from different countries 

 into guilds, and the organization of the 

 stiidium generaJe was definitely based 

 on the division into ' nations.' Teach- 

 ers, as well as students, migrated from 



