JACOB BIGELOW. 339 



profession, can be said to have identified himself with so many and 

 such permanent contributions to the public welfare. He was fortunate 

 in living to see the science for which he labored in his youth flourish- 

 ing in the hands of able successors who have given their lives to it, to 

 behold the whole land beautified with those rural cemeteries of which 

 he furnished the American model in Mount Auburn, to witness the 

 establishment of a more philosophical and safer medical practice as a 

 consequence of his outspoken appeal to nature and common sense, and 

 to enjoy the prospect of a more liberal administration in our colleges 

 and universities as a reward for his manly plea in behalf of the more 

 practical branches of knowledge. 



It would be hard to find any one better fitted to wrestle with the 

 years that close the labors of a long protracted life than was the strong 

 and firm-souled man whose career through its more active period we 

 have been glancing over. His constitution was robust, his habits were 

 more than temperate, his mind always active, but working easily in 

 every kind of service to which he called it. And there never was a 

 man who accepted the combat with his growing infirmities in a more 

 courageous and cheerful spirit. In the year 1870, at the age of eighty- 

 three, he was still in the possession of much bodily vigor and mental 

 vitality. He took a fancy to pay a visit to the other side of the conti- 

 nent, and carried it out with all the spirit of his younger days. On 

 his return, he wrote a very lively and pleasant little poem, recalling 

 the vivacity of the lines to the gingko-tree and others of his earlier 

 efforts. In the same year, he wrote, and read at a meeting of persons 

 interested, the Essay on Education before referred to. But the time 

 was near at hand for all his active labors to cease. 



With the exception of some deafness on one side and the fracture of 

 an arm by a fall, I do not recollect his ever suffering from any in- 

 firmity that made itself manifest until the last decade of his life. A 

 dimness of sight, which came on very gradually, was the first sign 

 which made itself obvious. It was found after a time that this dim- 

 ness was owing to the formation of cataracts in both eyes. It was 

 quite wonderful to see the way in which he accepted a fact so threaten- 

 ing to the happiness of his remaining years. He seemed to look upon 

 himself with curiosity as the subject of an experiment by Nature. 

 What he had to do was to train another sense to perform the task of 

 the one which was failing. Hrs description of the way in which he 

 taught his hands to work without the guidance of sight was given with 

 so much apparent delight that one might have thought he enjoyed 

 more in perfecting the groping organs of tact than he suffered in 

 losing the swift illimitable potency of vision. 



