OLIVER WOLCOTT GIBBS. xxiii 



little elementary instruction was required, the opportunity for use- 

 fulness to his students and to science generally were great. Asso- 

 ciation with such men as Louis Agassiz, the zoologist, and Asa Gray, 

 the botanist, and Jeffries Wyman, the comparative anatomist, and 

 Benjamin Peirce, the mathematician, and Josiah Parsons Cooke, the 

 chemist, together with their equals in other fields than scientific, 

 made the position altogether delightful. 



Dr. Gibbs remained in charge of the chemical laboratory of the 

 Lawrence Scientific School for eight years. During this time his 

 researches were naturally in great part directed to analytical 

 methods, for he was training men who were to become chemists, 

 some of whom were to gain a livelihood by being analytical chemists. 

 The number of students in the laboratory was not large, some of 

 these were qualified to assist Gibbs in his experimental researches. 

 There was an assistant to take the burden of much routine work, 

 and lectures on thermodynamics cost but little effort. The position 

 was accordingly specially advantageous for one who would devote 

 himself to chemical research. 



Some one of the many distinguished chemists who were pupils 

 of Gibbs in the Lawrence Scientific School could have spoken from 

 personal knowledge of him as a teacher; but the choice of your 

 president fell upon me, and it would only be some serious disability 

 which would justify any American chemist in declining to voice the 

 honor in which all of them hold Wolcott Gibbs. Since some ex- 

 pression of opinion and of feeling from those who came in close 

 personal contact with him ought not to be omitted, it is fitting that 

 the words in which one of the most distinguished of his pupils 

 should be cited here. Clarke, chief chemist of the United States 

 Geological Survey says : 



Most of the students had already gained some elementary knowledge of 

 chemistry; their work began with the usual practice in analytical methods and 

 chemical manipulations, and as tlie men showed capacity they were admitted 

 to the confidence of their master and aided him in his investigations. This 

 procedure may seem commonplace enough today, but in the years of which 

 I speak it was new to American institutions and was looked upon doubt- 

 fully by some. . . . The real examinations under Gibbs were daily inter- 

 views, when he visited each student at his laboratory table and questioned 

 him about his work. This, together with the reported analyses, gave the 



