OTHNIEL CHARLES MARSH 287 



the society for the third term had been taken from the senior class 

 for years, but one year the candidate was unpopular, a revolution 

 started, and the middlers resolved to run a candidate of their 

 own. Marsh, then a junior, threw himself into the movement 

 with might and main. He said to me: 'We can elect the middler 

 and next year I will be candidate; the precedent for the election 

 of a middler will be established.' He worked with much energy 

 and skill and caused the election of the middler, now Dr. Alex- 

 ander McKenzie of Cambridge. The next year this President 

 left school, and his place was supplied by the Vice-President, now 

 Dr. Franklin Carter, ex-President of Williams College. Carter 

 was the best candidate the seniors had for the third term presi- 

 dency, and would have been a hard man for Marsh to beat But 

 Marsh, with some assistance from myself, persuaded the Vice- 

 President to remain in his place and perform the President's 

 duties during the remainder of the term. Then all the school 

 politicians said that Carter had practically been the President for 

 a term, and of course could not run again. This took him out of 

 the way; the time for nomination approached; the seniors put up 

 a weak fellow, but fought for him like tigers, not wanting their 

 class to be defeated. Marsh organized the middlers with great 

 skill, held the class firmly together, picked up the loose votes ly- 

 ing around the school, and defeated the senior candidate by a 

 majority of one. The excitement in the school was tremendous, 

 and Marsh became a great hero. The foresight shown in pushing 

 in a middle-class candidate a year before, and getting McKenzie 

 and Carter on the shelf by previous elections so as to provide a 

 weak opponent for himself was quite exceptional in one so young. 

 " Marsh entered his senior year having gained all the honors of 

 the Philomathean, politics no longer pressed his mind, and he 

 gave his entire time to study. He secured the valedictory and 

 gave the address at the school exhibition, but his oration was quite 

 ordinary. He had made a clean sweep of all the honors of Phillips 

 Academy; there was no desirable honor which he did not get while 

 there." 



During his school-days at Andover and throughout his college 

 course he was a devoted student of mineralogy, and in the summer 

 of 1852 displayed his unabated interest in the subject by arranging 

 the collection of the Essex Institute at Salem, his vacation being 

 given up to this work and to explorations in Massachusetts and 

 New York State. It was, .during these years that various trips t9 



