COMMEMORATION OF PROF. HENRY A. ROWLAND. 7"! 



natural science in a Western college, where he acquired, however, 



experience and useful discipline. 



In the spring of 1872 he returned to Troy as instructor in physics, 

 on a salary the amount of which he made conditional on the purchase 

 by the institute of a certain number of hundreds of dollars' worth of 



physical apparatus. If they failed in this, as afterwards happened, 

 his pay was to be greater, and he strictly held them to the contract. 

 His three years at Troy as instructor and assistant prof essor were 

 busy, fruitful years. In addition to his regular work he did an enor- 

 mous amount of study, purchasing for that purpose the most recent 

 and most advanced books on mathematics and physio. II.. buill his 

 electro-dynamometer and carried out his first greal research. As 

 already stated, this quickly brought him reputation in Europe and 

 what he prized quite as highly, the personal friendship of Maxwell, 

 whose ardent admirer and champion he remained to the end of his life. 

 In April, 1875, he wrote: "It will not be very long before m\ reputa- 

 tion reaches this country;" and he hoped that this would bring him 

 opportunity to devote more of his time and energy to original research. 



This opportunity for which he so much longed was nearer at hand 

 than he imagined. Among the members of the visiting board at the 

 West Point Military Academy in June, 1875, was one to whom hud 

 come the splendid conception of what was to be at once a revelation 

 and a revolution in methods of higher education. In selecting the 

 first facult}^ for an institution of learning which within a single dec- 

 ade was to set the pace for real universh^y work in America, and 

 whose influence was to be felt in every school and college of the land 

 before the end of the first quarter of a century, Dr. Oilman was guided 

 by an instinct which more than all else insured the success of the new 

 enterprise. A few words about Rowland from Professor Michie, of 

 the Military Acadeni}^, led to his being called to West Point by tele- 

 graph, and on the banks of the Hudson these two walked and talked. 

 "he telling me," Dr. Gilman has said, "his dreams for science and I 

 telling him my dreams for higher education." Rowland, with char- 

 acteristic frankness, writes of this interview: " Professor Gilman was 

 very much pleased with me;" which, indeed, was the simple truth. 

 The engagement was quickly made. Rowland was sent to Europe to 

 study laboratories and purchase apparatus, and the rest is history 

 already told and everywhere known. 



Rowland's personality was in many respects remarkable. Tall, 

 erect, and lithe in figure, fond of athletic sports, there was upon his 

 face a certain look of severity which was, in a way, an index of the 

 exacting standard he set for himself and others. It did not conceal, 

 however, what was, after all, his most striking characteristic, namely. 

 a perfectly frank, open, and simple straightforwardness in thought, in 

 speech, and in action. His love of truth held him in supreme control, 



