6 Bashford Dean Memorial Volume . 



fishes in their manifold aspects. Upon this magnum opus he and his loyal staff labored 

 for many years. 



His early studies on the methods of oyster culture practised in various countries, 

 together with his quest for archaic fishes and their development, carried him into Alaska, 

 California, Japan, and many countries in Europe, where he picked up an amazing store of 

 sketches of the people and their surroundings, together with much knowledge of their 

 language, customs and history. 



His career in zoology and palaeontology, however, constituted only a part of his 

 training for his peculiar and unique achievements in the field of European arms and 

 armor, for he brought to his historical study of cultural evolution his wide and authentic 

 knowledge of the ways of organic evolution. Thus he was able to reveal a surprisingly 

 close general parallelism between the evolution of helmets and pole arms on the one 

 hand, and the evolution of organisms on the other. Meanwhile his tireless wanderings in 

 pursuit of elusive embryonic and fossil fishes in many parts of the world trained him to 

 follow the still more tangled trails of valuable pieces of armor. 



Although the full results of his forty odd years intensive study of European and 

 Japanese arms and armor remain to be published, even the casual visitor to his uniquely 

 arranged exhibit of arms and armor in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York 

 grasps the splendor of the collection if he does not realize the vast labors that went into 

 its upbuilding. 



As to Dr. Dean's personal characteristics, young students were apt at first to be a 

 little in awe of this short, square-shouldered man with his prominent chin, quick darting 

 eyes, and unpredictable sallies of wit and irony. But his enthusiasm was easily 

 communicable to receptive minds. Moreover, he could ''suffer fools gladly" or at least 

 with commendable good grace, and, all things considered, was surprisingly slow to wrath. 

 The psychologists might class him as an "extravert," but his friends would say that the 

 term "gentleman'' would be more descriptive. At any rate, his untiring interest in other 

 people, places, and things was joined with remarkable tact and courtesy, with unassumed 

 friendliness and with a modest spirit of ''noblesse oblige." 



BIRTH,- CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 

 1867-1887 

 With this preliminary impression before us of what manner of man Dean was, it may 

 now be well to take up in order some of the many threads of Kis life. From his sister. 

 Miss Harriet Martine Dean, to whom I am under obligations for many illuminating details, 

 I learn that the Dean family was of English and Holland Dutch stock, located around 

 Tarrytown, New York. Bashford Dean's paternal great'great-grandfather, John Dean, 

 was a captain in the American Revolutionary Army who took part in the capture of 

 Major Andre. His father, William Dean, a Columbia graduate, was a lawyer who com- 

 menced professional work with one of the large life insurance companies of New York. 

 At the time of Bashford Dean's birth (October 28, 1867), the family resided on Lexington 



