FIELD DAYS SUMMER SCHOOL 369 



cousin side by side, the professor said: "Here we have a fish from last sum- 

 mer's tide and his relation from the steaming, turbid waters of an almost 

 shoreless sea that flowed over this spot a hundred million years ago." 



Mr. Shaler would often return from the day's tramp severe 

 enough to tax the powers of men much younger than himself 

 very tired. Walking and talking, explaining and reiterating 

 all the way were taxing occupations, and not infrequently 

 the luncheon which had been put up for one was shared by 

 several, thoughtless youths having forgotten to bring their 

 own rations. But severe as was the day's work, at the end 

 of it the young men had profound respect for their teacher's 

 athletic capacities. Late in life he was fond of telling the 

 story of his once having overheard two students talking to- 

 gether. "Where's the old man?" asked one. "Hush!" said the 

 other, "if he hears you call him old man, he'll walk your d d 

 legs off." 



As we have seen elsewhere, Mr. Shaler early became inter- 

 ested in "the idea of summer instruction" and was among the 

 first to undertake teaching at that season, making a modest 

 effort of his own in 1868 to unite teaching with his field work 

 in geology by taking a party of students from Cambridge to 

 Virginia. In the summer of 1875 he organized the first course 

 in geology at Camp Harvard, Cumberland Gap, Kentucky. 

 The scheme in its general application was not warmly welcomed 

 at first, and the evolution of the Harvard Summer School as 

 it now stands with its hundreds of ardent students was some- 

 what precarious. In 1886 President Eliot appointed the first 

 committee to have charge of summer courses, naming Mr. 

 Shaler chairman, but it was not until five years later that 

 formal recognition was given by the Faculty of Arts and Sci- 

 ences to summer courses. Of the first committee appointed by 

 the faculty Mr. Shaler was again made chairman. For nearly 

 twenty years he gave himself with untiring devotion to the 

 development of this phase of college work, using unstintingly 

 his keen and vivacious intellect for the furthering of its inter- 



