260 C.-E. A. WINSLOW 



kindling the enthusiasm, inspiring the will. He was no orator, 

 but he compelled by the force of a ripe intellect, a genial philos- 

 ophy and an unswerving ideal. He had the instinct for the vital 

 point; and in the midst of all his busy life he never failed to gauge 

 the strength and the weakness of each individual student. He 

 was pitiless to the specious and the slipshod, and if his students 

 did not learn to think honestly and clearly they had only them- 

 selves to blame. 



Sedgwick's most notable intellectual quality was breadth of 

 vision. He saw every fact in relation to a hundred other phenom- 

 ena and he was at his very best with a small group of students, 

 following out in the experimental vein a line of thought which 

 might lead from the structure of plant tissue to the domestic 

 life of ancient Rome, and then to some fundamental problem 

 in philosophy or ethics. The Bible, the Greek classics and the 

 poets and essayists of England were always fresh in his mind to 

 furnish an allusion. He and Mrs. Sedgwick had travelled in 

 Europe, widely and in unusual by-paths; and he travelled with 

 eyes so wide open and interest so keen that he saw more and 

 enjoyed more in a month than many a self -centered tourist can 

 compass in a year. (One of the things his friends love best to 

 remember is the satisfaction he derived from his trip to Europe 

 last summer as exchange professor at Leeds and Cambridge.) 

 The whole world, past and present, was in the background of 

 his thoughts. He would take a simple fact and turn it this 

 way and that, and play with it, and toss it in the air, so that it 

 caught the light from a hundred different sources. No one who 

 has ever heard him discuss with a class by the Socratic method 

 the question, "What is truth, and why do we value it so highly?" 

 can ever forget that lesson in clear and straightforward and 

 constructive reasoning. The Institute is a busy place and no 

 man on its faculty was more active than Sedgwick in multi- 

 farious lines of public service, yet he was always calm, serene 

 and unhurried. If it could ever be said of any man, it was true 

 of him that he saw life steadily and saw it whole. 



Sedgwick had knowledge and wisdom, but, when all is said 

 and done, it is moral qualities which mark the great teacher. 



