4 Bulletin of Laboratories of Dcnison Uniz'ersity. f^'oi. xiii 



thoroughly characteristic thing in Professor Herrick's personality. 

 He was learned, but we have known others learned too ; he was 

 devoted to his work, but such devotion though uncommon, we 

 may find elsewhere ; he was a rare teacher, but the country has 

 many great teachers ; he was a man of strong religious faith and 

 rich Christian life, but that too we may parallel in other lives. But 

 1 cannot think of one other man who so powerfully impressed 

 those with whom he came into any sort of contact with a real long- 

 ing to find out new truth by their own effort and add it to the 

 legacy of knowledge which the present generation has inherited 

 from the past. His own work as an investigator was great ; his 

 work as a maker and trainer of investigators was perhaps greater. 

 I have never known an enthusiasm so contagious as his. It is no 

 mere accident that both of his brothers, his wife's brother, his 

 only son and a large proportion of his students have caught the 

 spirit of original research and made important contributions to 

 the fund of new knowledge. Contact with him in classroom, 

 laboratory or household seemed equally efficient for propagating 

 the germ of personal investigation. He might have been a great 

 teacher even without this power, as others have been ; with it his 

 success was assured, and eminence certain with favorable con- 

 ditions. 



As a fellow teacher whose work was more closely associated 

 with his through some years than was that of any other member 

 of the Denison faculty, this remarkable power of influencing 

 young men was a matter of great interest to me and I tried to 

 analyze it and find the reason for it, in the hope thereby of acquir- 

 mg some small measure of such power for myself. I do not 

 know that I can explain it satisfactorily, for any sort of personal 

 magnetism seems almost beyond the power of analysis, but per- 

 haps the attempt will enable us to gain a fuller understanding 

 of his character and work, and incidentally help the considerable 

 number among us who are, or expect to be teachers, to greater 

 efficiency in our chosen work. 



What then were some of the reasons for the unquestionable 

 power he possessed of moulding the purposes and lives of his 



