BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF HENRY MILNE-EDWARDS. 715 



ill tlie career of teacher. At the museuni, as at the Sorboiiiie, every- 

 where, this litth^ mail was to l)e seen, firm, benevolent, always conversant 

 with the least detail, whether administrative or scientific, ever ready 

 to practice what he preached. Those who knew him in the council 

 board of the University will not forget his kindly interest in watching 

 the development of young scholars; they remember those note books, 

 those special memoranda of their work and standing that he filed each 

 day so conscientiously. He had in the highest degree the sentiment 

 and love of the good. 



In this way he left his impress on the history of the '• Faculte des 

 Sciences," at Paris, and aided in the revolution effected in the last 

 twenty years, as well as in the entire system of higher instruction; 

 both have been re-constructed under an impulse which more than one 

 of my listeners has contributed to give by his support and devotion. 

 I would cite as an example of the pioneer efforts of Milne-Edwards 

 those scholarships for students which have proved so fruitful in the 

 encouragement ot youthful talent in our i)ublic educatioiuil institutions. 

 He started tliis system in 1849 by means of limited assistance, which 

 was withdrawn, owing to the vfolent reaction of that i)eriod, but was 

 continued on a larger scale thirty years later through tlie liberality of 

 the republican government. 



Of a different but not less usefnl class, the scientific excursions of 

 Milne-Edwards and his pupils to the sea-shore were the prelude to the 

 creation of those stations of marine zoology now encircling our coast, 

 like a crown of honor, through the zeal of such men as Lacaze-Duthiers, 

 Pouchet, Bert, Sabatier, Marion, and Giard, foreign workers speedily 

 following their example. 



Milne-Edwards, belonging essentially to the scientific class, never 

 extended his services and authority to the arena of politics. He was 

 ready however to perform in a manly way the duties of a citizen in 

 any emergency. When the gloomy days of the siege of Paris came, 

 and the city was surrounded by the enemy, Milne-Edwards, already 

 afflicted by the loss of one of his sons-in-law, who had been killed at 

 Gravelotte, nevertheless brought to the national defense a patrotic 

 band of learned men, whose unanimity of sentiment and action will 

 redound in history to the honor of French science and the Academy. 



When the shells were crashing against the museum he remained at 

 his post, going back and forth from the Jardin des Plantes night and day 

 to provide as quickly as possible for every contingency. There came a 

 day still more distressing, when he had to go to Fort Bicetre and look 

 for young Desuoyers, the son of a devoted friend, who had been mor- 

 tally wounded, and he himself held the reins and led the ambulance 

 along a road whereon the enemy's shells were raining fast. 



Such are the incidents that have diversified the lives of the men of 

 our day, not less troubled, perhaps, than were the savants of the six- 

 teenth century from foreign and civil wars. 



