JOHN H. TEMPLE. 449 



Neither was this the last of his labors. His interest in the re- 

 searches in which he had been so zealously engaged led him to collect 

 and prepare for publication a volume of the speeches made by his 

 father during the period of his active life. This was likewise well 

 received by the public. Here his labors ended. His observation of 

 the progress of the instruction, when elected as one of the Trustees of 

 Harvard University, was earnest ; and it led him to act as an occasional 

 visitor to listen to the exercises of the students. It was after a visit 

 of this kind that on the 17th of April, 1877, just as he got home to 

 his own doorstep at Dedham, the fatal stroke fell to terminate in an 

 instant his most industrious and honorable career. 



JOHN H. TEMPLE. 



Mr. John H. Temple was born in Princeton, Mass., on Oct. 3, 

 1812. He died in West Roxbury on July 25, 1877. His parents 

 were farmers, and were healthy and vigorous even to old age. The 

 son was of a delicate and sensitive nature. His whole life was a 

 struggle wfth a nervous and frail constitution, and in his mature years 

 he suffered from asthma. He left the paternal farm at eighteen for 

 Sterling, where he was employed in the manufacture of chairs. At 

 twenty, he began to work on physical apparatus under the instruction 

 of Mr. Nathan B. Chamberlain, He came with him to Boston, and 

 remained in his service for several years ; after which, he began busi- 

 ness for himself, about 1838. For fourteen years, his humble shop 

 was in Court Street ; he then removed to Franklin Street, and about 

 1865 to West Roxbury. At first, he manufactured apparatus of illus- 

 tration for schools and colleges, and for the Lowell Institute in its 

 early days. But his taste was always inclined to mathematical instru- 

 ments and instruments of precision, in the construction of which he 

 excelled, and to which he devoted all the energies of the best part of 

 his life. The officers of the United States Coast Survey, and engineers 

 generally, appreciated his skill and his conscientious fidelity to a high 

 ideal of workmanship, and engrossed all his time. His standard- of 

 execution was so high, and he found it so difficult to satisfy himself 

 even with the results of his own labor, that he could rarely obtain 

 any valuable assistance at the hands of others. Under such circum- 

 stances, his business was highly honorable, but not remunerative. 

 Theoretical and practical science must ever acknowledge their obliga- 

 tion to the genius of the workshop, whose inventive faculty and nice 

 instrumental appliances make the discoveries of the laboratory possi- 

 voL. xm. (n. s. V.) 29 



