^'■^- ^l Clarence Luther Herrick. 15 



of the anatomy and physiology of the nervous system. Finally 

 the ripest years were to be devoted to physiological and com- 

 parative psychology on the basis of the mechanics of the nervous 

 system and to philosophical correlation. 



His life may be roughly divided into four periods. While 

 these were marked by extraneous events and were apparently 

 purely artificial and arbitrary, yet it may be said that the ideal 

 scheme was in the end fairly achieved, though with great devia- 

 tion in the details of the working. 



Dr. Herrick was born near Minneapolis, June 21, 1838. He 

 grew up in a home far from neighbors, a solitars' child with few 

 playmates, and very early showed his bent as a naturalist. While 

 still in the Minneapolis High School he collected extensively 

 and left at graduation a case of over a hundred mounted bird 

 skins and other specimens to the high school. It was during 

 this period that his father, despite his poverty, got him an eight 

 dollar microscope. With this crude instrument and without 

 guidance or library facilities he worked over the fresh water 

 fauna of the neighboring brooks and pools so thoroughly that 

 before graduation from the University of Minnesota in 1880 he 

 had published several articles of value on the fresh water Cru- 

 stacea of Minnesota and four years after graduation, with some- 

 what better facilities, published a report on the micro-crustacea 

 of Minnesota, which is still standard. The materials for this 

 report were elaborated before he graduated from college. 



These years were filled with many bitter struggles, not the 

 least of which was with poverty and the consequent lack of ma- 

 terial for study. But, notwithstanding, he completed the college 

 course in three years, at the same time partly supporting him- 

 self by assisting on the staff of the Geological and Natural His- 

 tory Survey of Minnesota. He had also showed so obvious a 

 native gift with his pencil that upon his graduation the presi- 

 dent of the university said to his father that he was uncertain 

 whether to advise the young man to devote his life to science or 

 to art. But there was no uncertainty in the mind of the gradu- 

 ate. Continuing his work on the Geological and Natural His- 



