392 NATHANIEL SOUTHGATE SHALER 



But it was not alone for the benefit of his own department 

 that Mr. Shaler strove to find the right education. He also took 

 \ an active share in the discussion of every question that came 

 ^"before the faculty. His desire that young men should get all 

 that the College had to give, either by voluntary appropriation 

 or by a process of absorption, that, indeed, no chance of time 

 or place be lost for broadening their minds on every side, led 

 him to oppose the three-year degree. Another burning ques- 

 tion in its time was the elective system ; to this he was also, in a 

 measure, hostile. Doubting the wisdom of allowing youths un- 

 restricted range in the choice of courses, he advocated instead 

 the group system as illustrated by the four-year programmes 

 i in the Lawrence Scientific School. 



In regard to the part he played at faculty-meetings, where 

 all these questions were deliberated upon, Dean Briggs writes : 

 ". . . In all the years in which I have been a member of the 

 faculty, I have seen no one so alertly interested in every sub- 

 ject that came up : nor indeed have I ever met a man so quickly 

 and so warmly interested in every person and everything, 

 great or small. Though there are many of us, our meetings 

 often seem entirely different without him." Professor Wendell 

 likewise has been good enough to set down his memories of his 

 late colleague and of the spirit he carried into that same king- 

 dom of debate. This is what he says : 



BOSTON, November 10, 1907. 



During these past days, when I have been trying to gather together my 

 memories of Professor Shaler in the faculty, I have found myself more and 

 more aware of how deeply my relations with him there were at once of the 

 essence of our friendship and among the chief reasons why faculty life 

 often seems to me less professional than human. It is human, no doubt, in 

 a very comprehensive way: it has its quarrels and its tribulations, as well 

 as its joys and kindnesses: the very familiarity of it sometimes makes its 

 importance seem to dwindle. But, reviewed through a vista of years, it 

 shows itself, like the student life which came before it, a beautiful memory 

 of fellowship. 



The whole heart of this fellowship Professor Shaler embodied beyond 



