JEFFRIES WYMAN. 397 
though never hurried, was never idle, and that his great re- 
pose of manner covered a sustained energy; but I suspect 
that none of us, without searching out and collecting his pub- 
lished papers, had adequately estimated their number and 
their value. There is nothing forth-putting about them, 
nothing adventitious, never even a phrase to herald a matter 
which he deemed important. 
His work as a teacher was of the same quality. He was 
one of the best lecturers I ever heard, although, and partly 
because, he was most unpretending. You never thought of the 
speaker, nor of the gifts and acquisitions which such clear 
exposition were calling forth, — only of what he was simply 
telling and showing you. Then to those who, like his pupils 
and friends, were in personal contact with him, there was the 
added charm of a most serene and sweet temper. He was 
truthful and conscientious to the very core. His perfect free- 
dom, in lectures as well as in writing, and no less so in daily 
conversation, from all exaggeration, false perspective, and 
factitious adornment, was the natural expression of his innate 
modesty and refined taste, and also of his reverence for the 
exact truth. 
It has been a pleasure to learn, from former college students, 
who hardly ever saw him except in the lecture room, that he 
gave to them much the same impression of his gifts and 
graces and sterling worth, that he gave us who knew him 
intimately —so transparent was he and natural. 
With all his quick sense of justice, and no lack of occasion 
for controversy, it seemed to cost him no effort to avoid it 
altogether. He made no enemies, and was surrounded by 
troops of life-long friends. When he first went abroad, in 
1841, he was told by some near friends, who recognized his 
promise, that a chair of natural history in his alma mater 
would soon have to be filled, and that he should be presented 
as a candidate. In the winter following, the present incum- 
bent, responding to an invitation to visit Boston, which he 
had never seen, and to consider if he would be a candidate, 
then first heard of Wyman’s name and his friends’ expecta- 
tions or hopes; whereupon he dismissed the subject from his 
