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ROBERT HENRY THURSTON 



Professor Thurston enjoyed to an unusually high degree the 

 capacity for rapid and intensive work, and this, joined to a broadly 

 sympathetic nature, led him to cover with his professional activi- 

 ties an unusually wide field and enabled him to show in the 

 aggregate a productive result of astonishing magnitude. His 

 greatest monument, however, is undoubtedly represented by the 

 organization and development of Sibley College, and if in 

 detail this work was shared by others, such fact in no wise 

 detracts from his credit, but is rather the further evidence of 

 his capacity as an organizer and administrator, and for finding 

 such personnel as was needed for the attainment of his ends, 

 and for directing their energies successfully toward this goal. 



Personally Professor Thurston was warm hearted, sympa- 

 thetic, optimistic, and a most agreeable friend and companion. 

 In matters of a scientific nature he was quick in forming his judg- 

 ments and rapid in carrying them to execution. In matters in- 

 volving broader questions of policy he was more slow in form- 

 ing a final judgment, but once formed was tireless in carrying 

 it forward to realization. He was never discouraged by any 

 appearance of failure, and was strong in the faith that some 

 day the great purposes with which he was associated would all 

 work out to the best and highest uses of mankind. He died on 

 October 25, 1903, on his 64th birthday, in the full possession of 

 all his faculties, and with apparently many years yet of useful 

 activity before him. 



While it may be too soon to estimate with exactness his 

 place in the galaxy of the great minds which the 19th century 

 produced, yet among those whose work adorned the latter part 

 of this century, the name of Robert Henry Thurston will have 

 an assured and abiding place. As an engineer, a scientist, an 

 educator, a writer, an investigator, an expert and counsellor, as 

 a public servant in many capacities, and as a man and good 

 citizen ; all of these fields of activity have been enriched with 

 his labors and with his unswerving spirit of devotion to scientific 

 truth. He has left to the new generation a rich legacy in work 

 actually accomplished, and in the example of a scientist and 

 engineer faithful and true to the highest principles and standards 

 of life. 



W. F. DURAND. 



