138 HOY AL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



The influence of that devoted teacher and naturalist, Agassiz, 

 proved an inspiration to Hartt, while his association with kindred spirits 

 such as Verrill, Morse, Putnam, Hyatt, Scudder, Niles, St. John, and 

 others, stimulated liis powers and directed his genius. These were to 

 become some of the leaders who have wielded such a great influence in 

 stimulating scientific education and research on this continent. 



Hartt spent nearly four years as a special student under Prof. 

 Agassiz in the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Cambridge, devoting 

 his spare time chiefly to palœontology and the study and description of 

 the rich geological and fossiliferous material he accumulated in Nova 

 .Scotia and New Brunswick. Hartt's genius for original investigation 

 made him restive under the restraints imposed by the text-book and con- 

 finement within the walls of a school or college. When his father estab- 

 lished a high school in St. John he became assistant ; but the uncon- 

 genial task of instructing a class in general subjects, while a newly 

 discovered fossil was lying in his desk awaiting identification, proved 

 intolerably irksome to him. Later, when he filled various positions as 

 teacher of natural science in educational institutions in and about New 

 York, and as professor of geology in Vassar College and afterwards in 

 Cornell University, the laboratorj' and the field constituted his best 

 teaching ground, although his fluency and personal magnetism as a 

 speaker, and his wonderful powers of illustration, aided by chalk and 

 b'lackboard, made him always a conspicuous figure in the classroom and 

 on the lecture platform. 



I was a student at Cornell while Hartt occupied the chair of geology, 

 but as my studies led me in a different direction, I will let another^ tell 

 of his methods : 



'' I well remember my first visit to his laboratory. ... At a 

 email table in a large room, surrounded by boxes, barrels and trays, sat 

 the indefatigable worker. The wealth of a Brazilian expedition 

 demanded the attention of himself and his assistants. . . . The 

 instruction offered was individual, adapted largely to the taste or inclina- 

 tion of the student. Almost all the work was palajontologieal, consist- 

 ing of the collection, identification, description and drawing of fossils. 

 . . . He subjected each student entering his laboratory to some pre- 

 liminary test, and in that way surrounded himself with the best material; 

 for the less fortunate ones, if not told so directly, soon found that the 

 work of a geological laboratory was not their forte, and retired. He 

 seemed to feel that a busy man of science could ill afford to waste his 

 energies on material which, at the outset, promised to bear no fruit. . . . 



Pkof. Cha.s. Fkkd. Hahtt— a Tribute. Dr. Frederick W. Slinonds, Ameri- 

 can G'ologist, Ffl)., H!)7. 



