THEODORE LYMAN. 657 



The subject of the present sketch inherited his distinguished father's 

 physique, us well as his intellectual traits and his strong sense of civic 

 duties. He secured his early education from private instiuctors, spending 

 two years iu Europe from 1847 to 1849. While in Paris he suffered from 

 a severe attack of typhoid fever, and also from weakness of the eyes. Re- 

 turning home in 1849, he entered Harvard College iu the Class of 1855, 

 having among his classmates Alexander Agassiz and Phillips Brooks. 

 During his college course we find evidences of his literary activity in the 

 pages of the Harvard Magazine, a periodical founded by the classes of 

 1855 and 1856, but destined to be short-lived. 



As if anticipating a career which was ten years later to engross his 

 whole life and thouglit, iiis contributions were frequently upon military 

 subjects, on which, as his classmate F. B. Sanborn says, " he joked with 

 a substratum of excellent sense." His literary reputation as a student 

 will, however, always rest securely on the song in which, as Chorister of 

 the Hasty Pudding Club, he described the mystical origin of that ancient 

 fraternity. 



After graduation he studied for three years under the guidance of 

 Prof. Louis Agassiz, and in 1858 received the degree of S. B. sunima 

 cum laude. The impressions produced upon him at this period of his 

 life are recorded in an article entitled " Recollections of Agassiz," pub- 

 lished in the Atlantic Monthly in 1874. The direction given to his 

 studies by his great master was maintained during his whole life, and in 

 recognition of the high value of his biological work his Alma Mater 

 bestowed upon him in 1891 the honorary degree of LL. D. 



Theodore Lyman's first public service was rendered in 1859-60 as 

 a Trustee of the Reform School, which had been founded by the State at 

 the instance and with the help of his father, for the instruction, employ- 

 ment, and reformation of juvenile offenders unfit to be at large, but not 

 for boys who had become hardened by a prolonged vicious course, who 

 were bad themselves and fitted to make others bad. By degrees how- 

 ever this purpose had been lost sight of, and vicious youths up to sixteen 

 years of age had been committed to the School. The natural conse- 

 quences ensued. $50,000 worth of property was destroyed by the burn- 

 ing of newly erected buildings by a boy who thus attempted to secure an 

 alternate sentence, i. e. a short sentence to a penal institution, instead of 

 being kept under guardianship at the School during minority. A return 

 to the original plan of the founders of the School was secured through 

 the strenuous exertions of Theodore Lyman, who, though the youngest 

 member of the board, evidently prevailed in their counsels through the 

 VOL. XXXIV. — 42 



